First day at CMU

It was a freezing day (-5 Centigrade max) when I set out late morning for our first day at Carnegie Mellon, which is a 15-minute walk from our apartment. I was swathed in a muffler, woollen cap, 2 layers of gloves, jacket (over shirt) and jeans (over long john) and two socks each in my sneakers to brace myself against the elements: This was just about enough.

Since I could not cook today (just moved in yesterday), my friends here took me to a guest lecture ("Using Reflection and Abstraction in Software Engineering") - free pizza and coke!

After food, I went round the campus and was taken in by all the facilities here. The sports and fitness areas at the University Center (UC): basketball, squash, badminton, table-tennis, tennis courts and a sprawling football field. There were two gyms: one with machines at the UC and another predominantly with free weights. After seeing the libraries, I felt I would frequent the humanities one (Hunt Library) more than the Engineering & Science Library.

Later in the day, I visited (meaning, had a darshan of the building; not everybody is allowed inside) the famed Software Engineering Institute that revolutionised the way we do software development. It pioneered, among others, software processes (remember CMM?) and software architecture. I don't know how many other universities have a Master of Software Engineering degree.

I returned home at 8:30 in the night by the Escort Service van (run by the university police to take home the students safely in the late hours).

(Click on the thumb-nail picture to view photos.)