Penn State

As promised here is the rundown of my visit to Penn State (for my excuse about the delay please see the post entitled 'The Worst Flu Ever!').

It is very nice being an engineer. The visit to Penn State incurred very little unpleasantness on my part. All I had to do was tell their travel agent which flight I wanted and they took care of my flight, hotel, transportation, and food. I stayed at the Atherton Hotel which was very nice and was conveniently located right next to the engineering buildings.

As part of the weekend I got to take a tour of their facilities there, including the reactor. Penn State is an old university and many of the buildings reflect the age, yet they are well maintained. I loved the old buildings and I loved it being out East. There is a very different feeling between the eastern and western sides of the United States and I miss the east. The nuclear engineering department was very nice, the people that I met were very warm and open. There were only 4 students there that weekend looking at the department and so it was easy to ask questions and to get them answered.

The thing that excited me the most about Penn State is their radiochemistry program that they are starting up. Many of the radiochemists in the US are retiring and so the government is trying to get programs started to train up people to take their place. The focus of the radiochemistry program is on the development of fuels for the next generation reactors. This excites me because with my chemistry background and my interest in fuels this is a perfect fit for me.