There’s really nothing quite like being there. Two groups of students from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering learned that first hand this summer as they traveled to London and the Netherlands to explore in real life the concepts and ideas they studied in the classroom.
When civil engineering senior Maggie Lindsey went looking for an internship abroad, she couldn’t find exactly what she was looking for. She needed to complete the requirements for her global engineering leadership minor, and she wanted her global practicum experience to have a good balance of engineering and human compassion, she told international business news website Global Atlanta.
Environmental engineering major Claire Anderson spent the spring semester studying at Lund University in Sweden. It was a trip that carried both professional and personal attraction for her — she’s interested in the country’s environmental sustainability efforts and her ancestors came from the Scandinavian nation.
As if singlehandedly leading a dozen undergraduates at a time in the realm of real-world research isn’t enough of a challenge, Joe Brown ups the ante, carrying his undergrads to conduct fieldwork overseas — in a foreign-language country.
A dozen School of Civil and Environmental Engineering students will travel to New York this weekend to present their findings from a recent research trip to Bolivia. We’re not talking graduate students who’ve been doing research for months or years. No, this is a group of undergrads who spent just over a week abroad as part of a course they’ve been taking with Joe Brown called Environmental Technology in the Developing World.
Maimuna Jallow, a third-year civil engineering major, came back to campus this spring after a semester studying in Europe. With funding from the Joe S. Mundy Global Learning Endowment, Jallow took classes at Georgia Tech-Lorraine and explored the continent. Jallow said her months abroad left her with “newfound personal strength, courage, independence, and a strong appreciation of public transportation and infrastructure.”
Senior Maya Goldman spent 10 days in Peru last summer studying water resources and sustainability through The GREEN Program. Working with Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Cuzco, local community organizers, and owners of power plant and water treatment facilities, Goldman learned how Peru uses ancient methods and modern technologies to ensure access to clean water for future generations.
Kelsey Eichbauer spent most of her summer helping design and build systems to treat and recycle greywater for the community in Bluefields, Nicaragua. This is the wastewater from baths, sinks, kitchen appliances, laundry — essentially anywhere but the toilet. The work was part of the Global Leadership Program with blueEnergy, a nonprofit dedicated to providing energy, clean water, and sanitation in coastal Caribbean areas.
Civil engineering undergraduate Andrew Melissas spent his spring semester studying at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, with support from the Joe S. Mundy Global Learning Endowment. He calls that time “the best four months of my life.”
A group of Georgia Tech students has just returned from two weeks studying bicycle infrastructure in the Netherlands and contrasting the Dutch approach to American standards. The overwhelming consensus: it’s not just bicycles that define the Dutch transportation system. Rather, it's the integration of biking with all forms of public transit and infrastructure planning that makes the Netherlands’ famed bike culture a way of life.
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Mason Building, 790 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0355
Phone: 404-894-2201
Fax: 404-894-2278