Hi, my name is Raff and I am a third-year aerospace engineering student who did my first semester of this year at Penn State University in the US! I would love to share some of the experiences and any tips I have gained over the past 4 months I have spent abroad.
Getting to and from Penn State
Before travelling, I had to make sure that I had all the necessary documents to enter and live in the US for 4 months. The main document is the visa in which I was stressed about getting as I had heard stories of long waiting times and people being denied, however, the process was relatively straight forward and didn’t take too long. The other essential document was the I-94 which you receive after travel and is all done electronically and is very simple compared to visa.
Penn State University is located right at the centre of Pennsylvania in a town called State College where the nearest cities with international airports that fly to and from London are Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Both cities are quite far from State College, so it is essential that this travel is sorted before flying.
I flew from London Heathrow to Philadelphia and once landing in Philadelphia had a connecting flight to State College airport. This was an easy option but there is a slightly cheaper option which is to get the Greyhound coach. The coach journey takes around 3 and a half hours, and it picks you up from a spot around 20 minutes from the airport in an uber. This option does give you the opportunity to explore Philadelphia a bit before heading to State College.
From State College, the only transport from the airport to the university is via Uber as there are no busses or trains from the airport. The uber on arrival cost me around $20 which isn’t too bad, however I made the mistake of travelling back home on a day of a football match and the price of an uber shot up to $66!
Academics
I found the transition between studying at Southampton to studying at Penn State very easy. The classes I took were on equivalent modules that I would be doing at home and when comparing what I was learning to what my home course mates were learning it was very similar. The main difference is the structure. 3 out of 4 modules for me were split into 30% homework, 35% mid-term exam, and 35% final exam. I really liked this structure as it made the final exam period much less stressful, but it did mean that there was a high workload throughout the whole semester because of the homework’s and mid-term exams.
The other module I completed was 80% coursework, 15% mid-term exams, and 5% final exam. This was nice as all my grades came back quickly throughout the term so I knew exactly how I was doing and when it came to the final exam I could focus much more on my other modules.
My schedule with classes was the same every week where I would have all 4 classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays leaving Tuesdays and Thursdays completely free. I really liked this as it gave me a good chunk of time to dedicate to my work every week and I could then enjoy my weekends.
Extracurricular
Penn State did a really good job at making sure that all the exchange students meet each other, and they plan small trips at the start of the semester so that you could meet all of the other exchange students. Because of this, I have made some good friends from around the world but most of my friends were from Australia and New Zealand.
I would meet with friends daily for lunch and dinner at the buffets and food places on campus, and we would study together as well as go and play sports like football and tennis in the breaks we had. Penn State has really good sports facilities that are all free to use. The facilities include 3 campus gyms, a swimming pool, running track, climbing wall, football pitches, tennis courts etc. All equipment is provided for free as well.
The American football games are massive at the university and are a whole day event. I really recommend going to watch at least one and going along to the tailgates before and after every game. The tailgates are when all the fans of the football team and student’s families come down in trucks with BBQ’s and drink and play games before and after the game and are a great way to meet new people.
As Penn State is in the northeast of the US, it is near to some amazing cities such as New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia etc. This makes going to see these cities really easy and you can find coaches to all of them. It is also possible to go to Toronto as me and my friends rented a car and drove 6 and a half hours each way for a weekend there which was amazing. You also get a weeklong break at the end of November which is a great opportunity to travel. My friends and I booked flights and spent 8 days in Puerto Rico which was one of the highlights of my semester abroad.
Tips
Here is a list of tips that I could give after what I have learnt from my experience:
- Don’t leave applying for the visa too late. It’s a fairly quick process but you should get started with it as soon as possible to avoid the risk of long wait times as interview slots might be hard to come by.
- Make sure to bring clothes for both very warm and very cold weather as when I arrived it was around 30°C everyday but by the time I left it reached temperatures of -8°C and snowed most days.
- Try to avoid staying at the university during the thanksgiving break as it costs $510 to stay when it is the best opportunity to travel that you will get.
- When looking at halls, South halls and Pollock halls are very social and easy to meet people. West halls are less social and a bit further from downtown but is nearer to the academic buildings, East halls is only for freshmen so you cannot be placed there.
- Certain busses around campus and the surrounding town are free so make the most of them.
- Make sure to put yourself out there and don’t say no to social things at the beginning.
- In most cases, people have roommates, and this could be very 50/50 whether you get on with your roommate or not. If you don’t get along with them it is easy to change.