University: San Diego State University
City: San Diego
Country: United States
Continent: North America
Field of study: economics
Study type: semester abroad
My semester abroad in San Diego was indescribably beautiful and I will never forget this time! I was at SDSU, San Diego State University for a total of ten months and did the two semesters abroad voluntarily in my Bachelor of Science in Economics. See existingcountries for Netherlands higher education.
Organization:
MicroEdu was a huge help with this and I don’t know if I could have done it without them. Because the great MicroEdu employees send you all the information about the university and also all the documents for registering with the university. Above all, the checklists that give you step-by-step all the important points that you have to do before the trip were great! Information about the visa application documents and the appointment will be sent to you. If I had any questions, I was always given great help by e-mail and the employees were also available by phone. The testimonials from other students were also great to get insider tips.
Courses:
There is plenty of information about the courses and course selection in general. However, you have to do a little reading yourself in order to be able to decide which courses fit best. A distinction is made between business courses and general courses.
I’m studying economics at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and took the general courses because I didn’t have any more open business administration exams. I have taken the following courses, among others: Economics (ECON), Journalism and Media Studies (JMS), Political Science (POLS), Statistics (STATS).
I would definitely advise business administration students to choose the business courses, as there are many interesting courses to choose from. Business courses would be exams in the following areas, for example: finance, management, marketing.
Orientation week:
Settling in to San Diego is quick and there are plenty of friends to travel and have fun with. The ‘fresher’ week gives you a tour of the campus and there are many events to bring all the students together.
Support:
The professors are also very nice and especially the international students are very supportive when they have questions or need support. Your fellow students are also happy to help and are very open to you.
Leisure:
In addition, there is enough time for free time, since the good schedule means that you don’t have lectures every day. For example, I only had lectures on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which meant it was a very long weekend, during which I traveled a lot.
Sports offers:
PLUS the university offers a lot of sports programs that are a lot of fun, eg surfing. I can recommend to everyone! From baseball fields to basketball and of course football fields, everything is on campus. In the football stadium (Viejas Arena) there are often concerts and of course the SDSU football team always plays there and admission is free for us SDSU students! In addition, there is also a huge pool on campus, so a pleasant free hour is already taken care of.
Sightseeing features:
Must-see locations in California are definitely: San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, smaller cities like Santa Barbara, Malibu, Big Sur and of course national parks like Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Sequoia, Joshua Tree. Mexico is also only half an hour away from San Diego State and is great for day trips and partying (pay attention to your visa, it MUST be valid, otherwise you will not be allowed to enter the States again!).
Local transportation:
Many organizations (Sun Diego Entertainment, EA Tours) plan weekend trips with transportation for really little money. You can also rent cars very cheaply at Dirt Cheap car. For a few days only or even for the whole semester, I can only recommend the latter because there is not enough public transport and Uber/Lyft gets expensive over time. Spritz is very cheap, especially if you share it.
Meals:
You can buy groceries almost everywhere. Trader Joes is close to campus, and restaurants like Panda Express, Subway, The Habit, Dominos and more are also on campus!
Conclusion:
I would recommend a semester abroad to everyone, especially in San Diego, to be able to perfectly combine vacation and studies ! For this reason I even added a second semester and was there for about 10 months. The extension of my stay also went smoothly with the help of MicroEdu. So a big dream was really realized for me.
To learn more, feel free to visit my blog at ellaliciously.com. There I have more photos and some additional information about leisure and living for you!
Good luck with your planning and have fun in beautiful Sun Diego.