Hello! My name is Frances (Franny) Adams and I am a Junior majoring in Finance and Business Analytics and minoring in Economics! This semester I am studying abroad in Vienna at WU or the Vienna University of Economics and Business. I chose to study at WU largely because of its location in Central Europe. While abroad, I plan to travel (hopefully) every weekend and see as many countries as possible! I started my plans off strong by traveling to Budapest with new friends after only 4 days in Austria!  

I had international student/exchange orientation on 9/9 and 9/10. My biggest takeaway: The campus is absolutely gorgeous, and the world is incredibly small. In addition to learning lots of information about the international office here and the programs available, I met many other students from across the world! I can’t believe that I now have friends from Australia, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Germany, etc.  

While at orientation, I was speaking with a student from Ukraine. He asked where I was from and immediately mentioned that he had just met someone else from Rhode Island. My first thought was that maybe he had met someone from Long Island or some other place in the US- but sure enough I turned around and saw a girl that I graduated high school with! I hadn’t seen her since graduation- so so crazy the world is so small. 

When I thought it couldn’t get any smaller, I bumped into yet another friend from high school while in Budapest for the weekend! I knew that I was the only Pitt student traveling to Vienna for the semester and wasn’t expecting to see any familiar faces, it was such a nice surprise to see 2 people I grew up with within just one week of living in Europe (especially after traveling here and moving in all on my own).  

Currently, Vienna is flooding and many of the trains are shut down. From my apartment located in downtown Vienna, I have about a 30/40min commute to campus- so attending my first day of class today was not possible. I’ll start my pre-semester German course and Culture and Orientation program tomorrow where I’ll begin to learn introductory German and tour the United Nations headquarters.  

Other notes: 

Whatever you do… do not stand on the left side of escalators in Vienna, you will get yelled at and shoved by the Viennese. The left-hand side of escalators is for people running up/down, if you plan to just stand, stand on the right.  

The student union here is amazing and incredibly involved with international students. From planning trips, to parties, to events on campus, the students are incredibly responsive and an excellent resource for anyone living in Austria for the first time.