I study Electronic and Computer Engineering at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong and I am now visiting UKA for writing my doctoral thesis on Integrating Multiple Visual Cues for Face Detection and Recognition. With the help of the experts on face detection and recognition at the Institut of Anthropomatics  my research is going on smoothly.

I met lots of new friends here. They supported me to find an accommodation prior to my arrival. At the lab, people are really friendly and willing to help. They helped me to setup my computer and to get familiar with their computer vision system. They shared their experience on face detection and recognition and gave me a lot of advices on my topic which were helpful during my research. Especially, I want to thank our research assistant of interACT Ms Anja Knauer. She is really nice and very helpful.

I have been in Karlsruhe for two months, and everything is going well. The process of the visa application is very simple. The city is very friendly to foreign students. I extended my visa at school. It only took 3 minutes. The Office of the City Hall gave me a semester ticket for free and with it I can take any bus and train within the region for six months freely.

I am favourably impressed by the public transportation system in Germany. The busses and trains are always in time and the network covers the whole region. Riding a bike is also a very good option for transportation. In Karlsruhe there is a very beautiful forest, where you can enjoy riding a bike. The living costs are relatively low.

In my leisure time, I like to visit famous European cities. Europe is a really good place for travelling, and Karlsruhe is allocated in the center of Europe. From here you can travel to most of the European cities with great convenience. I took a train to Holland and the journey took only five hours and five hours to Austria, and the flight to Barcelona took only one and a half hour from a local airport. Around Karlsruhe there are a lot of beautiful sights, such as the famous Black Forest and the Bodensee.

It is really nice to participate in this exchange program. I experience a totally different culture. Working in a lab of computer science gives me more an idea about how the people in this discipline solve the problems, and I benefit a lot from it.

Since late September, I have been visiting CMU to write my study thesis. I am interested in the field of peer-to-peer networking and distributed storage and applications.

In preparation for my stay, I followed the helpful advice on the interACT homepage on how to apply for a visa. Looking back, the overall process is less a burden than I first thought. When I had any questions regarding the process, I got a quick helpful response from either the German or American interACT office. I would also recommend any future exchange student to get in contact with Kelly as early as possible, as she will be glad to give you up-to-date information on housing and help you further with any questions regarding your stay.

During the first week of my arrival, the G-20 summit took place in Pittsburgh, which made it practically impossible to find an accommodation on craigslist.com. Luckily, a fellow interACT student helped me out and offered me accommodation for the first week. When the dust settled, I soon found comfortable housing for less than 400 € per month located in Squirrel Hill within a 30 minute walking distance from the office. Judging from what I know from my colleagues, you can find cheaper places to stay, but paying around 360 €/m is quite common.

Most of the students find housing within a 1.5 mile range around CMU, which is the same area the nightly free-of-charge escort shuttle service will conveniently and safely drive you home.

The atmosphere in the office is very welcoming and productive, filled with kind people and well-equipped work spaces. The students are free to work on their own time schedule, so if you like to come to the lab early in the morning or stay late into the night, that's up to you. Also, my advisor is giving me very helpful directions in the progress of my work and I meet him every other week.

In my spare time, I like to work out at the University's sports facilities like the gym or the swimming pool. They are free to use and at the same time, can be compared with commercial standards. Doing sports can also be a good way to compensate the usually heavier eating habits that you will have difficulties to avoid.

As Pittsburgh is home to some bigger Universities, you can find a rather decent night life to enjoy in your leisure time. It's quite easy to get to know locals there. If you play any sort of instrument you can find open stages, a lot of bars and some clubs.

Furthermore, doing a weekend trip to Toronto, for instance, is really worthwhile. It's a 7 hour drive and on the way there, you can stop by the fascinating Niagara Falls.

Already, my stay has exceeded my expectations with still a couple of months to go. I would recommend everyone to take advantage of this academically, as well as personally rewarding experience.  I would also like to thank the interACT staff very much to make this exchange program possible.

I am currently working on my diploma thesis at the Carnegie Mellon
University of Pittsburgh. My work is about robotic perception for the
Personal Robotics project of Intel Research Pittsburgh.

Except for some problems with the immigration paperwork, which the OIE
helped to resolve, arriving here has been fairly unproblematic. I found
a place to live through the InterACT mailing list. It is located in
Squirrel Hill, within a 30 minute walking distance from campus.

CMU offers a lot of activities to its students. In addition to
exercising facilities like gyms and a pool, which can be used free of
charge, there are also a lot of student groups like the Robotics Club,
the Photography Club and the Explorers Club, which organizes various
activities like climbing and skydiving.

Although most important places are within walking distance from campus,
owning a bike is advantageous because public transportation can be a bit
unreliable. But there are also some nice bike trails around Pittsburgh. 

I am a computer science student from the University of Karlsruhe and I am visiting Carnegie Mellon University for writing my diploma thesis.  I arrived about three months ago and have enjoyed every day since then. At first, It took me a little time to get accustomed to the American culture and the way of living. Most of the people in Pittsburgh are a little more laid back than the people in Germany. This does not mean that people are not working or having lots of spare time, but it implies an overall working atmosphere that is very relaxing and pleasant.

CMU is a great place to study and offers many possibility for its students. On the one hand, one has the opportunity to learn from skilled people and therefore improve your own knowledge, especially in hot research topics. On the other hand, CMU provides great opportunities for its students to spend their spare time. The sports activities that are offered are outstanding compared to those that German Universities offer.

Finding a place to stay can be difficult, but I got in touch with other exchange students before I arrived and by doing so, I found a place to stay for the first nights. Luckily, my host decided that I could move in permanently. Squirrel Hill and Shadyside are two really nice neighborhoods that aren’t too far away from CMU. They both offer good possibilities to buy groceries, are affordable and have lots of places to eat. To get to the lab, I prefer to walk - which takes about 30 minutes - but since you will gain weight pretty easily over here (delicious fast food), this might be your best choice! A really nice thing is that CMU offers an escort that collects all the students from their institutes and brings them back home in the evening.

I personally think that it is really important to get to know at least a few Americans (and as fast as possible). Most of the people in Pittsburgh are very nice and it is easy to make new friends. They can show you places, that one alone might not have figured out. Since it can be difficult to reach certain places without a car, make sure you prefer to make friends with people that own a car! ;-)

Right now I’m looking forward to traveling to some of the places that are not that far away from Pittsburgh, for example the Niagara Falls and New York City - since domestic flights aren’t that expensive, I’m also planning to see some cities on the west coast.

I highly appreciate that interACT offered me that great opportunity to travel to the United States and to work at CMU! Thank you all!

Hey everyone!
I'm currently writing my Studienarbeit at Carnegie Mellon University. I've been here for almost a month now, and life in Pittsburgh has been great so far!
As with most exchange students, my biggest concern before I came here was finding a place to stay. I ended up staying on a randomly chosen couch for the first nights (www.couchsurfing.com), which gave me some time to get over my jet lag and get all set up at my office. Then I found a room to rent on a weekly basis and moved there, so that I could take my time looking for a permanent place. A great place to find classified ads is craigslist, and most students looking to sublet a room will advertise it there.
Generally, good areas to live are Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. Those are clean and green, although a little expensive. One of the big advantages, though, is the free CMU shuttle/escort service. Those buses will take you anywhere in a 1.5 mile radius around CMU, so you don't have to buy expensive bus passes just to get to work. Also, both neighborhoods are within walking distance from CMU. I settled for a place in Shadyside, and I need about 30 minutes from my bed to my office - awesome.
Most interACT students work in the interACT lab on South Craig Street. This is a great location, because there are lots places to eat, but it is at the very edge of campus. Some students, however, don't work there. My office is in the main computer science department building, because my advising professor at CMU isn't really connected to interACT and he took care of organizing a desk and such. As a great side effect, I get to live the stereotypical computer science geek life: my office is in the basement, has no natural light and I can't hear any bird songs distracting me from more important matters such as reading that pile of papers on my desk. Now this sounds a little depressing, but it's really not all that bad. It actually is very easy to concentrate down here, and the interACT lab (including free coffee and fellow students) is just five minutes away.
Talking of distractions: CMU has great sports facilities. There is a nice pool, several gyms, racquetball/squash courts, and so on. The only thing one needs to use them is a valid ID card, which everyone should get during their first days at CMU. Towels are also provided, so you don't have to bring your own. Also, there are fun events such as the annual Mobot race, bands playing on campus, free food for whatever reason and a lot of interesting talks worth attending.
I haven't seen alot of Pittsburgh apart from the neighborhoods around CMU (Oakland, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill - that's still a huge area), mostly because finding a nice place proved to be more time consuming than expected. There are many things to do here, though, and I'm planning to take advantage of that in the future.
I definately reccommend applying for the interACT exchange program. You'll get to live in a foreign country for a while (always a good thing), you'll meet loads of great people and on top of that, you can do research at one of the top universities in the field. Keep in mind, if you'd rather see something else than Pittsburgh, you might also apply for going to Hong Kong or Tokyo!
Bottom line: Great exchange program, great university, great fun. Thumbs up!

Working as a visiting scholar at interACT is very exciting. Carnegie Mellon University offers a unique research environment with smart people and close relations to companies. It has several research laboratories in cooperation with big firms like Google, Intel and others. There are frequent talks by company researchers, researchers from other universities or from CMU researchers. These talks offer the opportunity to learn more about state of the art technologies, not just in your own research area.

I wrote my study thesis at interAct about a new Full-Windshield Head-Up Display. The work was done together with a large American automotive manufacturer. The aim was to increase thesafety and convenience for the driver through smart computer assistance. The new head-up display allows enhancing the vision of the driver with information, not visible to the driver, by displaying data gathered by sensors, like cameras, to the windshield.

My computer vision team had a reading group every Friday whereinteresting papers were presented and discussed. The meeting was also attended by professors and researchers fromthe University of Pittsburgh. It was always a great opportunity to broaden the knowledge of all participants.

The University is surrounded by the nice neighborhoods:Oakland, Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. Apart from the inspiring atmosphere in the Lab and the exciting people at CMU, there are also a lot of social activities going on at CMU. Furthermore every student and employee has the opportunity to use thesports facilities, like a pool, Jacuzzi, gym, and so on...

The city of Pittsburgh is a good starting point for trips to the Great Lakes and the east coast. I made trips to different cities on the east coast like New York City. This city is definitely worth a visit. I also recommend visiting one of the many sports events in Pittsburgh. The games of the football team, Steelers, the hockey team, Penguins or even the notoriously bad Pirates, are definitely worth a visit. Pop Art
fans will love the large Andy Warhol Museum. It has many great original works from Andy Warhol and also small exhibitions from other contemporary artists. He lived the first years of his life in Pittsburgh.

I see my stay in Pittsburgh as very valuable and would recommend others to study or work at a top university in the United States. Pittsburgh itself is not the city which will impress someone at first sight, but once you stay there for a while, you will like it!