For the uninitiated, I'm Pete, a junior Industrial and Management Engineering major at RPI in Troy, NY. I have elected to study abroad this coming semester at the Technical University of Denmark, or simply DTU, just outside of Copenhagen in Denmark. I'm hoping to catalog all of my experiences here -- preparations, my daily grind, traveling, whatever else. When possible, I'll link over to my Flickr account for a first-person view.
While I still haven't left upstate New York yet, much work has already been put into getting this all to work out well. The entire process of applying to the REACH program here at RPI, along with all the subsequent steps involved following my acceptance, was pretty ridiculous. I honestly have no idea how I was accepted to this program in the first place; my academic record, although improving, is far from stellar. As far as I can tell, I'm the only student from my degree program heading abroad, so the lack of interest from the Decision Sciences department may have been a contributing factor.
Following that, there was a slew of paperwork thrown at me from virtually every direction. I had to actually apply to DTU, which was effectively a formality, fill out risk waivers and course plans, meet with the program coordinators and my student advisor on multiple occasions, and apply for a Danish student permit. There was probably more paperwork involved in making this work than I had to deal with in any of my courses this semester. I even ended up applying for the student permit at the consulate in New York during an unrelated trip down. It was all a bit much for my tastes, but it'll all be worth it as soon as I hop on the jet on January 25th.
I'm pretty excited.
