Hello All! My name is Rachael Dobosiewicz and I am urrently a senior civil engineering student at Syracuse University, who is interested in specializing in structural or architectural engineering. Myself and eight other students are here in Bulgaria for two weeks to tour various historical sites as well current project sites. We had the great opportunity to visit one of the very limited universities in Bulgaria and speak with faculty and students about the structure of the school. Things are done a little differently here as opposed to America. For example, their equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree is five years whereas ours are typically four or less. Also, here students are expected to specialize right away; there are no broad categories such as civil engineering that encompass a multitude of different disciplines. Instead their programs are very specific: gas supply, plumbing for buildings, etc. That could be beneficial if you are absolutely sure that is what you want to do, but if you are a first year just trying to figure out your niche, that could not work in your favor. If you switch to a similar major some of your credits will transfer however, if you transfer from another school, then you will have to start from year one. They offer master’s degree programs as well as PhD’s just as the US does but the fields of interests are more specialized than ours. Another difference in education here is that specialized school begins at the high school level; there are high schools that focus on sciences that many students were enrolled in prior to starting at this university. In our visit to the university, we were only privileged to see the hydraulics lab but it was very modern and contained relatively new amenities. They had a pipe line constructed with every single possible connection to help understand the uses of each. Overall, it was very nice to discover parallels and differences between our education system and theirs, but also to see where my own professor was taught!