A trip to University of Barcelona

Given how much I love Spain and Barcelona, I decided it would be worth wile for me to explore potential opportunities as a Phd student while I'm here. So, my mission was to get to the university and talk to some professor about the research they do here ... previously I couldn't find much information online.

I went to the university, past the security guard and into the campus ... I landed right into the math department area ... I felt right at home. There was a big square with the buildings connected on all sides. I went into the math department office and asked for help to find the computer science department. I was told to go to the next floor. I did. I walked into what was an Algebra department and asked to talk to a computer science professor; luckily a woman spoke English and walked me to the first available professor. I had no problem, a professor was available and had free time. By this time, I felt things have been moving very smoothly given that I am a tourist, who doesn't speak Spanish and just randomly popped in without telling anyone why I was there for!

The professor I was talking to was very friendly. We talked a bit about the research they do at the university there and about my past experience and interests. As it turned out they were doing research using AI to study human behavior, a topic I have quite a bit of interest in and have previously mentioned in my blog post Why Performance tuning is like Behavioral Psychology. The conversation was very positive and we agreed in the end that I should apply and that if there is a match I might qualify for projects that they will have soon.

I asked about other universities in Spain and got a nice list of universities for me to look into.

There are times I get the feeling like things go my way and a task that may seem difficult just flows naturally, this was one of those times.