University: California State University Fullerton
Country: United States
Continent: North America
Field of study: business administration
Study type: semester abroad
Exactly one year ago today I decided to do a semester abroad in the USA. I found out that MicroEdu can help me with this from a person at my university who had studied at Fullerton the year before. See existingcountries for Saint Marys University Review.
General MicroEdu
The contact with MicroEdu was always courteous and friendly, every question, no matter how small, was always answered very professionally and at the same time. This gave me security and a good feeling, because I knew that I would be looked after by nice employees at all times. I found the checklist that MicroEdu sent you with various other documents to be very good. It was a great help for me in not forgetting anything important. What I also found great is that there is a conference before the actual trip, where we can find out more information about our stay in America.
You can get more information from the Facebook group, which I highly recommend you join. Here you can talk to people who are currently in America, want to sell a car, or want to team up with others to rent a shared flat. I, for example, found my faithful travel partner through it.
Visas
If you work through the checklist you received, you will come to the point “ Apply for a VISA ”. For this you have to apply for an appointment online, if you, like me, come from Tübingen or nearby, the Munich and Frankfurt locations are closest. I had made an appointment in Frankfurt. It is very important that you really have all the necessary documents with you. At some, the staff will ask you a few questions in English why you want to go to the US. But this was not the case for me. I had made my appointment during the week and in the morning, so I was ready after 15 minutes. Others wait there for hours.
Flight
I then booked the flight in July via the Momondo website. It was important for me to travel a little beforehand and for this reason I made a stopover in New York, Washington and Philadelphia. If you’re considering stopping in New York, I highly recommend the New York Pass. Likewise the 2-day trip to Washington and Philadelphia for €150 with bed and breakfast.
Housing
I lived with a really great family in Placentia, which is about 5-10 minutes away by car. I rode my bike to the university every day, which took me about 20 minutes. Personally, I found it too silly to come by car because you don’t get a dedicated parking space, you just have to be lucky to find one during your class time, since Fullerton University is more of a commuter uni.
You have various options for renting an apartment. Personally, I would go to a youth hostel at the beginning and get information directly from there, because you can find really good offers locally. So it happened that I only had to pay €550 a month for rent instead of €1,100.
Campus
The campus is very large and has now been beautified again in my winter semester. You have great places to rest between classes. In addition, you are never alone, because very nice people always come up to you and want to talk to you (Americans are very open people). The campus is a paradise for coffee drinkers like me because, as far as I know, there are 5 Starbucks in different locations. I often went to the huge canteen for lunch. The food is really great there.
Travel
As mentioned, I had a great travel partner by my side and we’ve been somewhere else pretty much every weekend. Here are a few places we looked at :
- Palm Springs (about 1-2 hours away)
- The beaches around Fullerton (Newport, Huntington,…)
- Vegas (approx. 5 hours)
- San Diego (about 2 hours)
- San Francisco (about 7-9 hours)
- Seattle (we flew over the weekend, the flight was around 80€)
Of course we did much, much more and looked at each other. But make your own great itinerary.
I wish you a lot of fun in America and I’m a little jealous of you.