Written by Cameron Devers
Monday, January 8th – Day 3
Today was the first day of class. Group activities began around 1:00 p.m. when we decided to visit the local McDonald’s. It took well over 45 minutes for the 10 of us to order and eat our food; however, it was still pretty good. It was one of the more expensive meals we’ve had so far, but still cheap compared to the prices back in the states. Do you know what they call a quarter pounder in Romania? It’s a Royal. It’s because they use the metric system.
Afterwards, we moved from the McDonald’s to UPG, the Ploesti Petroleum-Gas University. Once we arrived, we were introduced to Professor Mihail Minescu, a Vice Rector for the university and our main contact with the University for this Program. He, with the help of Dr. Teodoriu, gave us a brief history of the university before taking a tour of the area.
Some key points of this lecture focused on the extensive history of the university itself, existing as an independent program in Ploiesti for 50 years now. The tour consisted of visiting several areas of the facility, as well as an introduction to one of the professors from the university who will be giving us a special lecture later this week, as well as a tour of her lab.
Additionally, Dr. T gave us a brief overview of higher education in Romania. The class began after the tour, where we were introduced to the Romanian students with whom we would be taking the class. When the class concluded around 8:00 p.m., we returned to the hotel. All the students went to a local restaurant to enjoy a meal together before heading in for the night.