Hi guys,
I’m an Australian Journalism student going on exchange to the US next year and trying to decide between a few schools. Not too worried about academic reputation as it’s just for a semester but would like to know which college has the best student life. Also, I’ve heard some of these are suitcase schools - would that affect the on campus vibe a lot?
I need to choose two, and have narrowed it down to these schools:
Purdue, SDSU, UNCG, Arizona State
Thanks!
Thought I’d just add that some of my other options were Cal Poly Pomona, University of Maryland and San Jose State University. I had eliminated them but just incase anyone thinks any of these would be better?
I’d pick UMD over Purdue, for journalism, especially, since you could easily go to DC (in an election year!), as well as Baltimore, Philadelphia, or (further away for breaks) New York City and Boston. SDSU would be second.
If you want to avoid commuter/suitcase schools, I’d cross out SJSU and UNCG.
If student life is a priority, SDSU is a damn fun place and SD has the best climate in the entire US.
If you don’t have to worry about academic rigor, San Diego, particularly the area around SDSU is a phenomenally fun place to go to school, particularly if you’ll be 21.
Thanks everyone, sounds like SDSU is the place to be for a classic college experience!
I do need a second choice though - I appreciate the advice about UMD, @MYOS1634, will have another look at it. In terms of UNCG being a commuter school, do you know if there will still be plenty of students and events happening on campus despite this, or do things really quieten down when the commuters leave for the day/week?
It’s a shame housing at SDSU is way more expensive than all the others but guess I’ll just have to suck it up. More to do around SD and Southern California means less reason to spend money on travelling elsewhere, right? Hahah
Arizona state is big and hot & sunny, & is known to attract thousands of attractive students, especially from California. Your Australian accent would probably do you well there. 
@Melbourne29 The key to breaking the commuter school feeling at UNCG is to make friends with people who go to sport games, make friends with the OOS or international students (there’s a lot!), or join a frat/sorority. The campus can be empty sometimes, but you have one of the best small-mid size cities in the US! There’s always something to do around town. You also have the Greensboro College, NC A&T State, and Bennet College nearby. UNCG may be empty sometimes but Greensboro is thriving!
Uncg is commuter and does empty out - if you’re going for just one term, you want to be involved immediately, so you want a campus with lots to do and lots of people to do it with, rather than kids who hang out in their high school groups and go home after class. Same thing with sjsu.
While North Carolina is a great state, in your particular situation I’d pick sdsu and umd-cp.
BTW get Harlan Cohen 's The Naked Roommate for a cool view into life at a US college.
I would pick a West Coast or an East Coast school
Personally, I wouldn’t regard SDSU as offering a classic college experience. However, the school could offer a nice general experience for an international exchange student, and could make a good choice for that reason. (UMD, btw, is the academically strongest school from your group – in some ways by far – in most ways.) Good Luck.
As interesting and nice as the san Diego area.is,it is also very similar to Sydney and the coast north of there. If the OP wants to experience something very different from.Australia, San Diego might be the worst place in the U.S. to go.
I like the idea of UMD (right outside DC) in an election year for a journalism major, though the AZ elections may be more interesting.
ASU and SDSU should be warm and fun, however.
All 3 are in big metro areas.
If you’re still interested in NC I recommend looking into East Carolina. It’s not a commuter school, tons of spirit, and a lot of fun.
@moooop, I’m from Melbourne so don’t have any beaches or anything around, if that’s what you mean by similar to North Sydney.
UMD looks great but I’ve read some things saying that the area around campus is quite unsafe and generally not very nice? It’s also harder to get into, requiring a higher GPA and with less spots available for exchange, but still possible. I’ll be there June - December 2017 so won’t be election year (applications have to be in the year before…).
Basically, I’d like a fairly classic college experience with active campus life, school spirit, sporting games, parties and whatever else people do haha. I definitely don’t get any of that at my Uni in the middle of Melbourne CBD. Would also like a good local area. Warmer weather is preferred but not a deal breaker.
I’ve just talked to my advisor and I have to pick one out of the following list as my second option (regardless of which I choose as my first) as they have more spots available:
UNCG (commuter school, not ideal)
Cal Poly Pomona (commuter school?)
Western Carolina Uni (don’t know much about this)
West Virginia Uni (don’t know much about this)
First choices again are:
SDSU
UMD
Purdue (any comments on this?)
ASU
Regarding weather, eastern US cold is at its most intense in January, followed by February. In College Park, the weather could easily stay moderate into late November/early December.
All of your first choices have big time sports (SDSU a little smaller time, but still much bigger than anything in Australia). All except PU are in big metro areas. PU will also be freezing in the winter.
Of the second choices, WVU will have the big time sports and parties.
I think the best choices for your second option would be Cal Poly of West Virginia. Western Carolina is a good school, but it doesn’t offer much for international students. Unless your interested in rural Appalachian culture, Western wouldn’t be a good choice. As a future UNCG student, I can’t say not to look into my school. We have one of the highest diversity ratings in the UNC System. I think UMD would be your best choice.
Purdue is a stem school - for engineers, scientists… Unless you’re doing data journalism ala fivethirtyeight, I don’t think it’d be the best place for and its location really isn’t what you want.
Sdsu is division 1 in quite a few sports, so it should be fine for that aspect of college life. Its soccer teams are pretty good.
Wvu may be an interesting second choice. West Virginia is a poor area of the country but the University is very energetic and while public transportation out will be a bit dire, if you can drive you’ll still be within driving distance of historical places. If you can’t drive it’ll be more complicated. It has lots and lots of academic offerings, football and other spectator sports, and its’residential.
Cpp is another good choice. Not as residential as WVu but well located and still not commuter-based. Check out the academic offerings as I don’t think they offer journalism though. They mostly offer science, business, etc, plus general education in a wide variety of subjects.
I’d pick uncc before wcu due to mocation/access issues.
Can you put down sdsu, then umd as your choices, then add the others?