Details

• United States of America
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• SoSe 2026
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months
• Contact: Login to see contact information

1. Preparation

- Start organizing early so you dont get stressed with visa applications, deadlines by the universities, housing, insurance, etc. - Look at your courses carefully, UMD only gives you access to the business courses about a week before you get there so it can be quite annoying because a lot of courses are full already (UMD students can already enroll in the middle of the semester before) - Getting to the university is pretty easy, you will probably fly to IAD (Washington Dulles), from there you can either uber to UMD (takes about an hour and costs about $50-80 depending on the time and day) or take the metro (takes about 1.5 hours but costs way less)

2. Accommodation

As I have family close to the university I lived there and didn't have to search for accomodation. You can choose between on-campus and off-campus housing. A lot of my friends lived off campus which I personally really liked because they all had their own kitchen and therefore saved a lot of money by making their own food. The best options for off-campus housing in my opinion is Landmark or Terrapin Row, as they are both very central to bars, grocery stores, restaurants and also the Business School building. I think the easiest way to find a room off campus is by looking through facebook groups for UMD students that are going to study abroad and need to sublease their room. Some on-campus housing apartments also have a kitchen, but you won't know before you decide if you want to live on-campus or off-campus. The dining halls have pretty good food options and a lot of variety, so this is definitely also a fun option if you want to experience the full american college dorm experience.

3. Academic life at host university

Academic life is very different compared to WU because the courses are a lot more interactive and you have lot of weekly assignments. In some courses there is a midterm and a final but typically they won't count as much as here. The professors are also a lot more interested in their students and genuinely care about you and your career. They want to help students succeed and find good internships and even jobs, which I thought was really nice because they show so much interest in you. I took five courses with each 3 credits (6 ECTS): - Globalization & Sustainability (Course IV Responsibility & Sustainability in Global Business) - Intro to Logistics and Supply Chain Management (BLP) - Customer Relationships (Courses Abroad) - The Enterprising Leader (Courses Abroad) - Strategic Innovation & Entrepreneurship (Courss Abroad) Generally, I would recommend all of these courses because the courseload was really not that much, compared to what I was used to at WU. Logistics was probably the hardest one because it had a lot of small MC tests and a midterm and a final. All the other ones were just group projects, assignments and presentations, which was honestly really low effort as long as you had the deadlines sorted (can be a lot to manage just because there are so many different small assignments).

5. Every day life in the host country

Life in College Park is very different from Vienna because the town basically is only the university. There are a few busses to go around campus with because it is huge, but it's also definitely walkable. UMD is very close to Washington (30 minutes with the metro to the National Mall) which is very nice for little weekend adventure. In Washington there is obviously a lot of things to visit (like the White House, Monument, and a lot of museums - most of them are free btw!). Life in College Park is pretty safe as there are mostly only college students walking around and you can also sign up for a warning system that will send out text messages and emails if there is anything going on at UMD. The university offers a lot of acitivities you can participate in and me and my friends signed up for almost every event. For example, the international office organized tickets to see Baseball at the stadium in Washington. Additionally they have over 500 student clubs and I would highly recommend signing up for at least one because it's the best way to meet people and especially american students. I signed up for the field hockey club because I played field hockey my whole life and I met so many people and even traveled to a National Championship to Virginia Beach (4 hours away by car). It can be overwhelming because they have so many different things happening all over campus every day but my advise would be to just go to anything because most likely it will be fun and also there are free things everywhere:) You can also watch all the "professional" sports games for free. Since I was there in the spring semester there were no football games but I went to the basketball, lacrosse and baseball games. They always give out free t-shirts, so be prepared to bring back way too many shirts.

6. Testimonial

Spending my semester abroad at the University of Maryland was a great decision because the campus life was very active and there were always opportunities to meet new people, join events, and feel part of the university community. Being close to Washington, D.C. made the exchange even more exciting because I could explore the city, visit museums, and experience a completely different cultural environment. I also really enjoyed how interactive my courses were, especially because professors cared a lot about their students and often connected classes to real life opportunities. Overall, UMD gave me the feeling of a real American college experience, which made my exchange semester very memorable and probably the best semester of my studies so far!