<p>Hi, I'm coming to Richmond from Britain this september as an exchange student and i have, well, about a billion questions! I can get most of the facts and figures from other posts, but i'd really like to know a bit more about the whole experience.</p>
<p>How integrated are the exchange students into the 'native' student population? Since i'd be a junior, wouldn't everyone else have made their own friends already? Also do exchange students have any particular image or reputation?
Would i be considered a 'proper' junior; for example could i participate in the ring dance or join a sorority and things like that?
Realistically, how many hours of class and how many hours of independent study do you do per day? At my current university I only have 10 hours of class per week and the rest is all independent, but from reading through the website it seems there's an awful lot of contact time at Richmond (which i personally think is great!).
I'm studying geography by the way, so any ideas about that you have would be really welcome as well.</p>
<p>Basically any help is appreciated; I so don't want to be a complete fish out of water next year!</p>
<p>Will you be an exchange student for the semester or the whole year? Ring Dance is in the spring, and you would be able to participate as long as you’ll be here for it. However, a sorority is a long-term, even life-long commitment and not something you would be able to join for only a few months before you went back to the UK. You would be able to join any non-Greek organizations you want, though. There was an exchange student from Edinburgh in the Art Club meeting I went to yesterday, actually.</p>
<p>I am taking 4 classes, and I spend 16 hours in class a week. However, that’s out of the ordinary because 2 of my classes are studio art classes, meaning they are longer than normal classes. How many hours you spend in class depends on if it’s an art/music class, if it’s a science class with a lab, etc. Standard classes meet for 75 mins if they meet twice a week and 50 mins if they meet 3 times week, but it could vary. My art classes are 2 hours long, and I had a chemistry lab that was three hours long last semester.</p>
<p>oh cool, I will be here for the whole year! I did think the Greek system would need a longer commitment so i’m not too disappointed at all.</p>
<p>That sounds like a really reasonable timetable as well, one website seemed to be suggesting a 9-5 day in lectures which would certainly have been rather daunting!</p>
<p>Thanks for the info :)</p>
<p>Oh that’s so exciting! We have quite a large bunch of exchange students. I think you have a separate orientation before the rest of the freshman and upperclassmen move in, so you should know all of the exchange students right off the bat. But if you intend to live on campus, as you definitely should, you should also have roommates/suitemates that are not exchange students, plus people on your hall. Classes are entirely mixed, as are the dining hall and all extra curricular activities, so you’ll be with American students all the time. </p>
<p>I don’t know very much about the geography program here at Richmond, but I think it’s fairly small. I imagine that you’ll get to supplement your mostly geography course load from university in Britain with a variety of classes here. </p>
<p>The coarse load is definitely not 9-5 here unless you schedule it that way on purpose! That would be difficult. Four or five classes is the norm, so a lot of people end up having two or three classes a day, depending on what they choose. Thats just a few hours of work in class each day. For independent work, it really depends on what sort of classes you want to take and how quickly you can get through the work assigned. There’s more reading here than in Britain, generally speaking, as well as more assignments in general. A good rule is two-three hours outside of class for every hour spent in-class for each course you take. That’s the average for me with daily homework.</p>
<p>I’m certainly excited about it! Sorry for the delay in replying by the way; we have a two week holiday here which has just finished so i was away for a bit. I’m filling in all sorts of forms now for next year, and choosing modules so your advice comes at a really good time; thanks so much :)</p>