North Carolina State University

Now for an introduction (my own version) to North Carolina State University (thereafter referred to as NC State), the place where I'm studying at this semester.

At the Campus Crusade meeting it was mentioned that there are 32 000 students at NC State, of which 4 700 are freshmen. So it's a really huge university with 10 colleges and between them many departments offering over 100 degree programs.

The campus is divided into central, north, west, south and centennial campus. There's a campus bus called Wolfline that runs through the campus but I've never taken it before. My classes are all within the north campus which is very near the central campus where my dorm is, so I just walk. Students can ride for free on the Wolfline and the public buses in Raleigh when they show their campus ID card.

Hillsborough street runs along the boundary of the north campus and has lots of food outlets. It's almost like the only street outside campus where you see people walking along the streets.

This is the entrance to one of the three dining halls. It's where most students eat their meals, and there's meal plan where you pay in advance for a eat-all-you-like, aka buffet. There will be a few dishes that is served the same day once the week, but some stuff that will be there every day are burgers, hot dogs, fries, pizza, salad bar, fruits, desserts, ice cream etc, really a lot of food!

Just a nice scene of the campus, a place I walk pass every Tues and Thu when going from my International Finance class to the Public Finance class.

The building on the left is Harrelson Hall, where I go every day as I take two courses there. It is quite special, being the only circular building, designed by students and is said to sink a two inches every year if I remember correctly.

Now for the library, it's 10 storeys high and is a very nice place! Bookstacks like these below occupy seven floors!

And in this picture below you see many people at the computer terminals and two television sets where people are playing wii. How interesting!

One interesting fact is that many of the buildings have multiple exits and exits on multiple floors. Oh the campus is rather hilly, maybe like NUS and NTU. Sometimes I walk uphill only to have to walk downhill again. I don't think there are any escalators. We all use the stairs (except the circular building where you can walk in circles to go up the building or the library since it's 10 storeys high) but anyway the buildings are about 3 or 4 storeys high only.

An exciting weekend lies ahead. Watch this space!