We started our day early waking up at 7:00 AM, getting ready, and enjoying the hotel breakfast until 8:30 AM ish. After getting ready for our day, we headed to the Wastewater Treatment Plant and received an in-depth tour of how the plant operated from the steam engines to the chimneys! Despite the facility’s impressive size, it originally worked with 18 employees. A picture of one of the two chimneys can be seen below alongside a picture of one of the other stops in the tour.
After our tour, we went to the Charles University, where we were given a lecture of how Czech history has influenced its engineering. Additionally, we also had a very introductory level class on the Czech language.
While I can’t say I have experienced a large degree of culture shock, I have been surprised by some of the differences between Pittsburgh (and other cities in the United States in general) and Prague. For such a populated city, I expected a loud environment like Downtown Pittsburgh, but it is nothing like that. I was out the entire day, and I can’t say that the city was ever loud. People tend to keep to themselves and keep their voices down.
Swanson School of Engineering 