Registration

Rugby and Football Fields

Today I officially registered for the course, got a general overview of things going on at the University and met my classmates. We also toured the motorsport testing facilities and Impact Centre where 70% of F1 cars get their FIA certified crash testing done. The course director, Dr. Njuguna basically told us to never walk in there unannounced or without a professor because of confidentiality agreements that they sign with the teams or organizations running the tests.

Rugby and Football Fields

After the tours we all met in a classroom and introduced ourselves. Let's just say it's a very diverse group. I'm the only American. There are student(s) from Belgium, Holland, Malaysia, Iran, Scotland, Ireland, England, Asia (didn't specify further), Canada, India, France, Spain, Poland, and I'm probably forgetting a couple as well. On Wednesday we get to tour Silverstone (current home of the British Grand Prix) and spend all day there as well. We were told to bring our driver's licenses, because there was a "driving activity." Don't want to be too opimistic, but actually driving a few laps of the circuit would be just absolutely phenomenal.

Afterwards we had a welcome BBQ, which was hamburgers, bangers, chicken wings, a couple pasta salads and cole slaw. Overall a pretty good meal, and a good number of my classmates were around so we got to know each other a bit more. Surprisingly I believe there are only a few others that have work experience - meaning they aren't coming directly out of undergrad or the "uni" as the English seem to call it.

The main task for tomorrow is to go get a cell phone. I'm going with the company 3 because you can use Skype on all their phones for free. I'll do a pay as you go plan for local UK calls, which should help me keep overall costs down. Hopefully I won't need to use it too much.

The Bus Stop at Cranfield