First impression about Penn

Due to the hurricane Irene, my flight to US has delayed for a few days, but this didn't affect my enthusiasm to explore this unique country in the other part of the world.
This is my first year in Penn for master's degree and it's also my first time to visit US. I have been living in China for more than 20 years and finally i got chance to study abroad and taste a totally different style of life.

(1) Philadelphia v.s. Beijing

(Photo taken by Rhino Wang from GSE：wangdi@gse.upenn.edu）
Philadelphia is one of the oldest cities in the United States and it has much historical significance. It's not a very commercial city like New York(even though we can see skyscrapers of the central business district in the picture), instead, it's an old city which has seen this nation rises from the War of Independence to today's thriving and prosperous. Therefore, Philly has many historical sites that are worth visiting, like The Franklin Institute, National Constitution Center, etc.
Beijing is quite similar to Philadelphia in the aspect of historical significance. Beijing is the capital city of China and of course, there' are many historical sites as well. The different thing is, Beijing serves as the capital city and the commercial center at the same time. Thus Beijing is quite crowded, you will see people and cars busy on the street everywhere.
In this point, Philly is quite different and i personally think it's suitable for a campus to be located here, because the Penn campus is not in the central district (but not far) and the traffic is very good according to my observation.
The price level of Philly is definitely higher than Beijing, but compared to New York, the housing price of Philly is a little bit lower.
To sum up, in my point of view, Philadelphia is a city full of humanism and history. And i really like the lifestyle here.

(2) University of Pennsylvania v.s. Chinese universities

My American friends has asked me if i have met any cultural shock in U.S. after my first week in U.S., i said not really, because my former experience make me adapted to very diversified environment. But still, there are so many differences between American universities and Chinese universities, which i think would be very interesting to compare them.
First thing is the campus. Chinese universities usually have walls outside the campus, which means, you can easily define which part is inside the campus and which part is not. However, University of Pennsylvania is quite different, it's on the street, without walls, without gates that indicate the boundary of the campus.

(Photo taken by Rhino Wang from GSE：wangdi@gse.upenn.edu）
 Apart from that, the architectural style of the buildings in the campus of Penn is quite different from the ones in Beijing. The so-called "Collegiate Gothic style" of Penn is very eye-catching.

(Photo taken by Rhino Wang from GSE：wangdi@gse.upenn.edu）

Really looking forward to exploring the class in Penn, i believe it's gonna be a lot of fun!