University: California State University Fullerton
City: Fullerton
Country: United States
Continent: North America
Field of study: business administration
Study type: semester abroad
I studied at the California State University of Fullerton, CSUF for short, in the fall semester of 2010 (August to December). Here in Germany I am studying business administration at the University of Münster. Unfortunately, since this only has one partner university in the USA, I was very happy that MicroEdu.de gave me the opportunity to complete a “semester abroad” in California. Thanks for the great help and support with really ALL questions!!! See existingcountries for California State University Fullerton Review 2.
The town of Fullerton itself is nothing special. However, I chose it as my place of study because the university has a very good reputation for a Californian state university and Fullerton is located in the middle of Orange County. Los Angeles is about 40 minutes by car (it can be longer, depending on the traffic situation) by train you need about 1.5 hours for the entire journey. The nearest major city, San Diego, takes about an hour by car or 1.5 hours by Greyhound bus. Fullerton is very centrally located. During the weekends you have a lot of time (usually, unfortunately I only speak for the business administration course) because Fridays are usually free. Even if you always hear that renting a car in the USA is almost unaffordable or even impossible if you are under 26, we never had a problem with it. The best place to go for this is Enterprise. Without a car you are in a fix anywhere in California, as the public transport system is horribly bad. So I would advise anyone who wants to travel to buy a car or like we did, rent one with a bunch of people every weekend. For commuting within Fullerton or Placentia, the neighboring town where many of us have lived, I would advise getting a bike. You just have to be very careful when riding a bike, as there are no trails and Americans are not used to watching bikes.
The well-known beaches of Orange County, known from series such as OC California, are only a short 28-mile hop away, but almost inaccessible by public transportation. Beaches such as New Port Beach and Huntington Beach are easily accessible by car.
The University of Fullerton has a beautiful and relatively modern campus. The business economists have their lectures in the Mihalo Hall, which just opened 2 years ago and is the jewel of the whole campus. The campus is like a city of its own. You can easily stay here for a whole day. The lectures are held in small groups of 30-50 people and the professors are always trying to help you, especially if they have had good experiences with German students in the past. As a rule, two intermediate exams are written and then at the end of the semester a large one, the final, which, depending on the course, is composed of the complete material of the semester. Most exams consist of multiple choice questions, but some of them are not that easy. In most courses you have to do different assignments, presentations or projects. Here you usually work in groups at work. This is a very good opportunity to get in touch with Americans. However, one should not be surprised if the Americans hand in their part only 5 minutes before the submission deadline. This is normal for her.
In Fullerton, the university or college.contact will send you a form (if you don’t necessarily ask, it’s very important!) on which you should make a temporary speed dial. 8 – 10 courses are listed in order of importance. This sheet is used by the International Office in Fullerton to reserve some places in the courses for international students, as they cannot register for the courses in the system like Americans can.
This hand increases the likelihood of getting the right quotes. However, I had only received two courses and therefore had to crash my other two courses. This turned out not to be very easy. In the end I had to make a lot of compromises and after a week I finally had 4 courses. You have to keep in mind that only three of these courses were the ones I wanted to have before. But others had it easier than me. So don’t panic!
I lived with a host family, but in the end it turned out to be an older woman who takes in 3 students every semester. So it was more of a flat share than a host family. I would recommend this to anyone because I paid the least of them all and had a beautiful house and furnished room.
My time at Fullerton was wonderful and I would definitely make the decision to study there again. I met very nice and loving people there, with whom I will try to stay in contact. This time was formative for me and I will keep the memories forever.