Hello Everyone! My name is Jerry Peng. I'm a rising Junior studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering. This summer I'm going on the Engineering Perspectives of the Renaissance and Sustainability in Florence, Italy! It's a 4-week long program where I'll be studying art history and architecture and engineering and sustainability techniques during the Renaissance and in the present day.
Over the course of the program, I'll have the opportunity to truly immerse myself in Italian culture. Not only will we be spending time analyzing the Renaissance or studying famous paintings, but I can also just walk 10 minutes and see it in person! Over this month I will be visiting art galleries and museums and seeing things such as the Birth of Venus, Michaelangelo's David, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (or Duomo for short), Piazzale Michaelangelo and so many more! For the engineering and sustainability side, we'll have the opportunity to visit the Galileo and Da Vinci museums and also take a trip to a sustainable farm out in the Tuscan countryside. And all of those amazing things don't even include the number of things that I can do outside of class! I'll truly get a full experience of Italy and it won't be something I'll ever forget.
I was introduced to the program by a past student who spoke to us at my Mechanical Engineering seminar. Last year I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Plus3 program here at Pitt and got to spend two weeks in Germany. Those 14 days were some of the best of my life. It was amazing being immersed in a different culture and it gave me the itch to want to do it again. Germany was an amazing experience and the moment I got back I wanted to do it all over again. I don't doubt that the same thing will happen when I get back from Italy.
There's still a lot I have to learn and even more than I want to experience. And with that, there are a couple goals that I want to accomplish on this trip and in the future. First and foremost, I want to be willing to experience new things and I want to be open-minded. This trip will be completely different from anything I'm familiar with at home. I want to learn to maintain a global perspective and what better way to learn new things than throw myself in than living for a month in another country. The second goal I always want to strive towards is to make good connections with other people. In Florence, I'll meet new people, develop friendships, and gain new experiences together. I hope to have a few new friends when I start the fall semester at Pitt and bring a piece of the experience back with me through them. Lastly, I'm sure this program will give me new insights into engineering and help me to be more mindful as I progress through my degree. I hope to use my experiences and work to be a better engineer and have a better understanding of how our work affects the entire world.
With all that being said, stay tuned for my future blog posts! I can't wait to share more with you all as I continue on this journey!
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