I’m a student from Europe considering spending a year abroad at one of the following US universities and would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with them. I’ve seen this forum pop up a lot while researching, so I thought it would be a great place to ask. I understand the last three on the list are often described as more commuter-oriented schools, but I imagine there’s still a good student community on or near campus.
The universities I’m looking into are:
*Western Washington University (Bellingham)
*University of Nevada, Las Vegas
*University of New Mexico (Albuquerque)
*University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Any insights, personal experiences, or recommendations you could share would be greatly appreciated!
I can’t speak to the academic programs or residential life at these schools, but wanted to encourage you to think about the “seeing America” part of your year abroad. The US is really, really big, and it has few areas with robust public transit. I would be wary of selecting a school that’s especially isolated, unless you’re really planning on just staying in that one location.
If there are any other engineering schools you might be able to look at, you might have a better time with the touring aspect of your time here. You’ll note from this random Amtrak map I found online that your best bet for touring might be somewhere in the New York City to Washington DC corridor — not that you’d be taking Amtrak, necessarily, but cities are a lot closer together and easier to get to in that region, whether by bus, or airplane, or a roadtrip with friends.
From the list, I was thinking Las Vegas for this reason - very well connected to other cities, especially other west coast cities. However, then you also have to consider the HEAT. You’d basically be in a desert. Hot and dry. Is that a suitable climate for the OP? It’s also noisy and distracting, which some students would love, and others would not like at all. So there are definitely some important factors to consider beyond academics. You want to go for the full experience, not just classes.
You may want to check to see how well the engineering courses at the abroad university in the US match up to the engineering course requirements at your home university, so that you can continue to make progress toward your degree and graduate on time.
