University: San Diego State University
City: San Diego
Country: United States
Continent: North America
Field of study: business administration
Study type: semester abroad
Preparation
I’ve always wanted to go to the USA, but unfortunately the HNU didn’t have a partner university there that I liked. So, as a freemover, I started looking and found the right university through MicroEdu. Since I wanted to deepen my knowledge of finance and treasury in Germany, I concentrated on universities with a large business faculty. San Diego State had this and was mid-table on tuition. So my decision was made. San Diego. See existingcountries for 6 best countries to exchange in English.
I informed myself in advance about the housing options and decided not to live on campus but on the beach. I then came across KAMO-Housing through various apartment agencies. The cost seemed reasonable to me and the location was good too. Also, the apartment has a one-month notice period, which is much shorter than the campus dormitories.
MicroEdu helped me a lot with preparing all the important documents for entering Germany and registering at the university, and it was relatively easy to organize.
I arrived in San Diego in early August to settle in a bit. I spent the first week in a hostel (Lucky D’s in downtown is recommended). Logging into the SDSU is very straightforward and easy. However, I had to realize that the majority of the many international students are German.
The choice of course was a bit chaotic in my opinion. For the most part, you didn’t get the courses that you had previously specified on the course wish list (I only got one of them). In the information event in the second week, the application process for the courses was explained to us:
You should look online for courses you are interested in and select them (this only applied to business faculty courses, general courses could be crashed normally). The problem here was that every student marked almost every course to get the 12 units they needed.
After marking the desired courses, the teaching lecturer received a list of interested students whom he should then contact. The number you got on this list depended on how quickly you marked the course after it went online. True to the motto: Whoever comes first serves first or whoever marks first is higher up on the list.
Those who did not follow these rules and crashed the business courses normally (as was usual for the general courses) were still on the list of applicants, but they were placed last, i.e. at the end of the list. The same applied if you could not be patient and contacted the respective professor yourself.
I was fortunate that I was offered a special session and three professors wrote me for courses I was really interested in.
The courses I took were:
FIN 325 Intermediate Finance with Prof. Moon Song
The course content was interesting, the textbook was good. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the professor was a bit unfriendly and could only convey the content moderately.
FIN 327 investments with Prof. Dr. Andrew Do
The content of this course was also interesting, but in my opinion it was conveyed poorly by the lecturer.
FIN 329 International Business Finance with Prof. Kuntara Pukthuanthong
Very interesting course where I learned a lot. However, the professor raised the level after the first midterm, so the course became very, very demanding.
ECON 360 International Economic Problems with Prof. Thitima Puttitanun
Interesting economics course. The content was very well presented and explained and the exams were very fair.
Overall I have been very satisfied with the courses and have learned a lot at San Diego State University. The campus of San Diego State University is very beautiful but also huge.
To live in San Diego
“America’s Finest City” – True. The city is beautiful, has beautiful beaches and everything is very well maintained. The weather in San Diego is just gorgeous. I lived in Pacific Beach. With the bike I had ten minutes to the beach and to all shops. I came to the university by car. Since a rental car seemed too expensive to me, I bought a car at the beginning of the semester and sold it again at the end.
I shared a flat with a German, Swede and Dane and I really liked it. In my spare time I learned to surf, played tennis and spent a lot of time on the beach.
The Californian mentality is very relaxed, which seemed a bit strange to me at first, but later I adapted pretty quickly.
Of course we also traveled in our free time. Las Vegas and Los Angeles, San Francisco are all destinations that are very good to explore over the weekend.
Conclusion
Preparing for a semester abroad is time-consuming and sometimes exhausting. The step of going abroad alone may seem big at first and some are put off by it. After my semester abroad, I can only recommend everyone to go abroad. It was an amazing time with lots of great impressions. I would do it again anytime.