About Me
Hi! My name is Pieter-Antonio Fernandez. I am currently a 22-year-old student in the master of electrical engineering at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium. In the beginning of this year, I was awarded the Melexis - Columbia University grant of the ENGenius Fund to study one semester at the electrical engineering department of the prestigious Columbia University in the City of New York.
First, I’ll tell you a bit more about myself. I grew up in Hoboken, a district of Antwerp in Belgium and that means I will certainly have to pay a visit to Hoboken, New Jersey, which is just on the other side of the Hudson River, next to New York.
I went to primary school at the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwecollege, in the center of Antwerp and to high school at Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-van-Lourdescollege in Edegem, which is a smaller village close to Antwerp. Next picture shows the beautiful cathedral of Antwerp.
After high school, I started studying at KU Leuven to become an engineer. For my bachelor’s degree, I chose a major of electrical engineering and minor of mechanical engineering. Last year, I continued pursuing my passion of electrical engineering and thus chose for the master of electrical engineering, option electronics and chip design. The engineering faculty of KU Leuven is located in the picturesque Arenberg park, just outside the city centre of Leuven. Here you can see the Arenberg castle, where the dean’s office is.
Right next to the Arenberg castle, the electrical engineering department of KU Leuven, also called ESAT is located. This is where the story of this blog all started, but more about that in the first blog post. This is only a five-minute bike ride away from my current home.
As you might’ve noticed from my name, I am of Spanish descent. My grandparents on the paternal side migrated to Belgium in the fifties. I will thus certainly enjoy discovering the Hispanic community in New York.
In my free time, I like to play tennis, go out and play cards with my friends. When I have a little more free time, during holidays, I also enjoy tinkering with microcontrollers and other electronics, or do some light programming.
Up until I started university, I was a member of the Antwerp Cathedral Choir. Each year we travelled somewhere in Europe for two weeks to bond with the group of friends. I’ve always enjoyed to travel, so I hope to have some time to discover a little more of the United States, during my time in New York.
That was me in a nutshell! I hope this introduction sparked some interest to follow the rest of this blog and my adventure in New York.
Have a great day!
Pieter-Antonio
