Impressions from the Field: Harvard and Poli-USP Engineers Explore Brazil

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Layla Nunes Lambiasi
5th-year

My experience with this year's Collaborative Course Harvard SEAS/Poli-USP couldn't have been better. During 10 days I had the opportunity to meet interesting people, to discover new places and learn more about my own city. The site visits and lectures were all very relevant bringing up the many problems of big cities such as São Paulo. These issues give students from different courses, an overview of how to address the challenges of the future. From the transportation system, water management to energy supply, we understood how many of these structures works and how we can try to make it more sustainable.Throughout the activities we had the chance to discuss all these questions with professionals and professors and to be engaged in many enriching debates. One of the best things about this experience was the friends I've made and the moments we shared, looking at São Paulo through their eyes definitely changed the way I see my city.

About

This collaborative field course is an initiative of Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the Escola Politécnica of the Universidade de São Paulo (Poli-USP), and Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin America Studies.

The course will take place in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) from January 11-21, 2015, with equal numbers of participants from Poli-USP and Harvard. It offers the unique chance for participating students and faculty to explore the complex challenges faced by engineers, urban planners, and policy makers in the field.

2015 topic: Sustainable Cities
The intense growth of cities in recent decades has increased the urgency of finding sustainable solutions for resource use in urban environments. Through a combination of field site visits, lectures and group discussions, the 2015 SEAS/Poli-USP Collaborative Field Course on Sustainable Cities offers the opportunity for hands-on engagement in São Paulo, a metropolis of 20 million inhabitants. During the course, participants will gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation for urban challenges and solutions related to energy, sanitation, transportation, water and more.

In 2014, Brazilian students visited Harvard to learn about Urban Adaptation to Climate Change. The year before, in 2013, Harvard students traveled to Brazil to study The Global Challenges of Energy Production. The 2013 blog posts are archived below. This is the sixth year of the program.

Views expressed in this blog are the personal views of the individual authors, and the statements made do not officially represent views of the University or any of its units or officers.