Wenzel's Blog

I spent most of friday walking about on campus. It is strikingly beautiful. Most buildings are constructed in a style called collegiate gothic, which is a 19th century revival of gothic architectural designs. The nature around here is also very nice and there are lots of old trees and squirrels.

Some buildings on my way to the central campus

Since friday was move-in day, lots of tents and booths were set up everywhere. One consequence of having so many of these buildings on a slope is that you can enter them at ground level – and in order to leave at the other side, you actually need to go down four floors!

Willard Straight Hall (contains the student union)

The people here are very friendly and communicative. I had many conversations and took several guided tours. My head is close to bursting from all of the provided information… I also met two graduate students and we went shopping for the most essential things. Things are very expensive on-campus, but they become a bit cheaper in the malls and shops reachable by bus. Still, a box of cereal costs about $5, which is really expensive!

The Arts and Sciences Quad

There are lots of orientation sessions for the new students! Today, I had the international graduate student orientation. Tomorrow, there will be a normal graduate student orientation and on tuesday, there will be a special computer science orientation session.

War Memorial Building

Several small lakes and rivers run through the campus. If have time tomorow, I will go and try to explore some of those parts.

Beebee Lake and ‘The Slope’

So far, everything has far exceeded my expectations and I have had a wonderful time. I am really looking forward to my stay here and I am especially excited about the next few days.

After an exhausting journey, I finally arrived at Cornell University. The atlantic ocean flight coordination system suffered a blackout, so my flight needed to be re-routed over skandinavia, iceland, greenland and canada (I could see icebergs from the plane)! In Manhattan, I went to the Cornell Club, which is a kind of fancy place for Cornell alumi. From there, I took the Campus-To-Campus bus line, which is a four hour drive to Ithaca.

I arrived at 1am and started searching for my dormitory, which is located downhill from the central campus. This was when I noticed just how steep those hills are. (The pictures were taken on the next day).

I had lots of trouble getting down these slopes with all of my baggage but eventually managed to get there. This is a picture of my dormitory:

I was able to check into my room even at this late time and fell asleep at once.

Tomorrow, I will be leaving for the USA. I am very excited about how things will turn out when I arrive there. I finally have my visa, the baggage is carefully tuned for the 23kg limit, and most things here in Karlsruhe are taken care of.

On Monday, my flat-mate and me painted my room in different shades of peach – she will move into the room while I am away. I think it looks very nice:

I will arrive in Ithaca, NY at 11pm and have no idea what I will do until the next morning.. During the next day, I will have to take an English test because my TOEFL score of 108 was one point below the required 109 of 120….

Ithaca is the name of a small city in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. It is the home of Cornell University and the North American seat of the 14th Dalai Lama (He is going to hold some lectures during August). I will study there during the academic year 2007/2008 to get a Master of Engineering in Computer Science.
The great thing about this one-year program is that it places almost no restrictions on the course selection, so I can attend all kinds of interesting computer graphics lectures without worrying too much about degree requirements. Cornell University is a member of the Ivy League and its faculty has done lots of important research in this field. I am thrilled to go there and it’s only two more months…