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Study Abroad

aswedc

Diamond Member
Have you done it? Where did you go? What was your home school and host school? What were your experiences?
 
Haven't ever done it. However, I've met many foreign exchange students; they seemed clueless at first, but by the end of the year they were speaking english very well and seemed quite chipper.
 
Did a semester in Denmark. Loved it so much I ended up going back to Denmark and working for the program for a while.

My experience was that I lived with a host family, commuted 45min into the city for class, got drunk with my professors, argued politics/arts/what the best beer is with Danes, etc and overall had a good experience.

It all depends on you whether you make the experience worthwhile or not. I saw many people who only hung out with people from their school (some schools had 20+ students there from the same major), or with other Americans, or just stayed home all the time (on ATOT perhaps?), which is kind of sad. Certain things will be slightly or really uncomfortable, like going to a party where everyone is speaking in a language you don't understand, but if you wanted comfortable you could stay at home in bed all day.
 
Originally posted by: aswedc
Have you done it?
yes
Where did you go?
cambridge, england
What was your home school and host school?
trinity college was hosting it, and tulane set it up
What were your experiences?
drank a lot of beer (very good there), saw the british open and the tour de france, partied in soho, etc.

oh yeah, a guy by the name of rehnquist read his books to us.
 
Originally posted by: kami333
Did a semester in Denmark. Loved it so much I ended up going back to Denmark and working for the program for a while.

My experience was that I lived with a host family, commuted 45min into the city for class, got drunk with my professors, argued politics/arts/what the best beer is with Danes, etc and overall had a good experience.

It all depends on you whether you make the experience worthwhile or not. I saw many people who only hung out with people from their school (some schools had 20+ students there from the same major), or with other Americans, or just stayed home all the time (on ATOT perhaps?), which is kind of sad. Certain things will be slightly or really uncomfortable, like going to a party where everyone is speaking in a language you don't understand, but if you wanted comfortable you could stay at home in bed all day.
So the school you went to hosted a lot of American students from different colleges? I assume most people there spoke English, and weren't bothered by Americans who didn't speak Danish? Mind telling me what program it was?
 
denmark here also at DTU, north east of copenhagen. i loved it and did a ton of traveling. flew everywhere becuase i had the funds and traveled last minute most of the time. visited zurich, amsterdam, southern spain, london, rome, munich, athens, mykonos, santorini, oslo, western sweden and most of denmark. i wouldnt trade any dollar amount for the experience. send me a pm if you have any questions!

my host family wasnt great, an older couple that lived very far from school, but i met lots of people and tried to get everything i could out of it. whatever you budget, have at least that much also saved up incase you need it. in my opinion, this is a once in a lifetime experience, and dont let money get in the way of doing everything that is avaliable to you
 
Originally posted by: Skiddex
denmark here also at DTU, north east of copenhagen. i loved it and did a ton of traveling. flew everywhere becuase i had the funds and traveled last minute most of the time. visited zurich, amsterdam, southern spain, london, rome, munich, athens, mykonos, santorini, oslo, western sweden and most of denmark. i wouldnt trade any dollar amount for the experience. send me a pm if you have any questions!

my host family wasnt great, an older couple that lived very far from school, but i met lots of people and tried to get everything i could out of it. whatever you budget, have at least that much also saved up incase you need it. in my opinion, this is a once in a lifetime experience, and dont let money get in the way of doing everything that is avaliable to you
Sent you a PM 🙂
 
Originally posted by: aswedc
Originally posted by: kami333
Did a semester in Denmark. Loved it so much I ended up going back to Denmark and working for the program for a while.

My experience was that I lived with a host family, commuted 45min into the city for class, got drunk with my professors, argued politics/arts/what the best beer is with Danes, etc and overall had a good experience.

It all depends on you whether you make the experience worthwhile or not. I saw many people who only hung out with people from their school (some schools had 20+ students there from the same major), or with other Americans, or just stayed home all the time (on ATOT perhaps?), which is kind of sad. Certain things will be slightly or really uncomfortable, like going to a party where everyone is speaking in a language you don't understand, but if you wanted comfortable you could stay at home in bed all day.
So the school you went to hosted a lot of American students from different colleges? I assume most people there spoke English, and weren't bothered by Americans who didn't speak Danish? Mind telling me what program it was?

Denmarks International Study Program Everyone calls it DIS. A couple months earlier and you would have seen me on the IT page😉

We had about 350 students a semester, about 300 Americans, 10-20 Chinese students, some Russians etc. It was mostly American though.

They take care of pretty much everything, visa, insurance, housing, commuting, study tours, scheduling and registering (classes were at different universities throughout Copenhagen), etc so all you basically had to do was buy a plane ticket. Which is good for some people, others like to have less structure/more freedom and do the typical college exchange program where you take care of everything (housing can be a real pain to deal with, I ended up homeless on my supervisor's couch a couple times when I was working there).

Everyone pretty much speaks good English, it's actually hard to practice Danish since they all want to practice their English with you and not deal with your broken English.

btw nightlife there is unbelievable, midnight is early, most bars and clubs are open until 5am or even 10am:Q
 
Went to Seville, Spain. It was awesome. Basically what we did was goto school from 9AM-1PM and then from 4PM-7PM. During the week we would go to discotecas or bars and hang out. On the weekends we went to excursions in other cities like Cadiz. Was a really fun time.

Was a great break for me since I was used to working and going to school at the same time.
 
Originally posted by: SirStev0
seemed pointless... seems to me that a lot of kids do it for no real reason

Experiencing a semester in another country is not pointless
 
I went to London for a semester. My university in the US had a school over there. There were no additional fees assuming you got accepted into the program - they paid for round trip airfare, and your regular tuition was the same as whatever it would have been if you had stayed in the US that semester. Financial aid carried over as well.

They also gave each of us $70/week to cover food and other household supplies, but London is extremely expensive so that really didn't cover it. Unless you don't mind experiencing London from your flat window, I recommend bringing a hefty chunk of change. Although travel is comparatively cheap over there (you can find flights from London to other major European cities for as low as $20 or so) the little things like cover fees, drinks, food, tube/bus passes, admission costs to tourist attractions, souvenirs, travel, etc. really start to add up quickly. Granted you don't have to go to the most expensive clubs, you don't have to buy lots of drinks at the bar, etc, but overall it's still a very expensive city to live in.

Having said that I had a lot of fun over there and thought it was a very worthwhile experience.

Obviously a lot of what I said may not be applicable depending on what school is sponsoring the program adn where you go to study.

We were also given two 1-week breaks to travel.
 
Originally posted by: SirStev0
seemed pointless... seems to me that a lot of kids do it for no real reason

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
Shallow people do it for bragging rights.

You think so? Because just about every person I've talked to who has participated in an exchange program felt as though it was the best and most valuable experience of their lives, and that they learned more in that timeframe then they did in their entire educational careers.

 
question for the UK people - is the culture there really that different from the US, or was it more like just visiting another city for a while?
 
Originally posted by: aswedc
question for the UK people - is the culture there really that different from the US, or was it more like just visiting another city for a while?

Well, I can tell you that the food kinda sucks... but it seems kind of similar (never been there myself).

 
Originally posted by: Skiddex
Originally posted by: SirStev0
seemed pointless... seems to me that a lot of kids do it for no real reason


Originally posted by: 91TTZ
Shallow people do it for bragging rights.


obviously you have NO idea why you are talking about

QFT.

Going abroad is the best thing you can do in college, hands down.

Edit: I spent a semester + a summer in Berlin, Germany.
 
Psuedo did it. Moved to another country and after a while started studying and working.

Do it. Very good experience. Work and/or study. Then travel.
 
Originally posted by: aswedc
question for the UK people - is the culture there really that different from the US, or was it more like just visiting another city for a while?

It was definitely different, but nothing that you didn't get used to after a few weeks of living there.

 
I did a summer study abroad program in England 3 summers ago. It was one hell of a fun time.

It's a good way to meet people, experience another culture, get some classes/units, and have fun.
 
I did the spend a college semester program in Japan for three and a half months. If I had to do it again, I would travel about three weeks in about five different countries to experience the culture and life there. After about one month in Japan, things got boring and most of us wished that we were someplace else or doing something different.
 
did a summer in tokyo, japan

santa clara school of law -> waseda host

good times, good experiences, but it wasn't my first time in tokyo. studying abroad is a lot of fun, and it helps you realize that there ARE in fact people that live very differently yet similarly to the way you do.

nothing wrong with becomming more cultured. i would definately recommend studying abroad.
 
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