Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University International Student Insurance

Carnegie Mellon University, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1900 as Carnegie Technical Schools with a one-million-dollar grant from industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie’s comment “My heart is in the work” that accompanied the donation became the school’s motto. In 1912, the school was renamed Carnegie Institute of Technology and began to offer four-year degrees. In 1967, CIT merged with the nearby Mellon Institute to become Carnegie Mellon University. The school colors are cardinal, black, gray, and white, and its athletic nickname is the tartan.

On Campus

Carnegie Mellon enjoys the reputation as one of the best research facilities in the nation. Research programs include the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the Robotics Institute, the Software Engineering Institute, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and the Language Technologies Institute. In addition, corporate research labs from companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, and Boeing have all established a presence on or near the campus.

The campus also has a storied history of events and traditions. One such tradition is “The Fence,” a fence in the center of campus that students guard around the clock and are allowed to paint in the middle of the night. The Spring Carnival is a four-day celebration that occurs every April. The Kiltie Band is a marching band that performs in full Scottish dress, including kilts and knee socks. Seniors involved with performing arts sign the walls and ceiling of the Green Room before they graduate.

Notable Alumni

Notable Carnegie Mellon alumni include artist Andy Warhol; author Kurt Vonnegut; mathematician John Nash of A Beautiful Mind fame; co-founder and chairman of Adobe Systems Charles Geschke; Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of Kevlar; and James Gosling, creator of the programming language Java.