Hey my name is David Perkins but I go by Dave because Dave is a much cooler dude. I am from Concord Massachusetts and am super delighted to be attending Pitt. I attended Concord Carlisle High School before coming to Pitt where I played squash in the winter and Ultimate Frisbee in the spring. Going on adventures out of the country is my favorite activity to do in the whole entire world. I took a year off between high school and college to do some adventuring. I have hiked the 300 mile Long Trail starting on Vermont’s southern border and ending at the northern border. I have also hiked the first 900 miles out of the 2200 miles total on the Appalachian Trail and I am planning on finishing it up after Plus3! I also backpacked around New Zealand for three months between December and February of last year where I spent Christmas swimming in the warm summer ocean.

I am currently an undecided major in the business school but leaning towards either Finance or Human Resources. In High School I had a short internship where I worked for Acend Tech now known as REIN, a drone insurance company. It is a local startup company with only a few employees. During the internship I was tasked with learning everything there is to know about any federal laws pertaining to drones. I also had to learn about the industry and what commercial drones are used for. Do you know? They are mainly used for real estate photography and monitoring farmlands. This internship was a great introduction to the business world that I am so excited to be part of in my future career.

For Plus3 I am going to China which I am super eager to get to. We are going to Beijing, Shanghai and Xian, three cities that I have heard amazing things about. I am more than excited to go to China because it has a totally different culture than what we have in the United States. It is easy to forget that over a billion people live there making China possibly the most important country on the planet. The reason I want to go to China is that their economy has been steadily and rapidly growing and with such a huge population they are likely to become the next world leader. I want to know everything there is to know about China because of its booming economy and population. The other reason I want to go to China is because I love to travel. I have been to France, Spain, New Zealand, Ecuador and many islands in the Caribbean but none of these places are even as close to a different as China is. And after I go to China I will have been on five of the seven continents in the world so I just need to tick off Africa and Antarctica and I can say I have traveled the world. China is going to put me way out of my comfort zone and I am excited to face the challenge.