Details

• United States of America
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months

1. Preparation

- Have a look at WU partner universities and their programs - Look what program fits the best for you - Look how many appliations and places there were in recent years - If doing an exchange semester is more important to you than the universities pick one or two universities where chances are really high to get in (pick them as your LAST spots)

2. Accommodation

Personally at uga it was pretty easy. It is recommended to stay at one of the campus dorms and you get two options. One is a cheaper one where you live a little bit off campus in a shared room with a few other students. The other one is more expensive but you get your own room in a 4-students apartment and share one bathroom with another person. In the 4-students apartment one of the residents is also an exchange student and the other two are American students. There you also live close to the gym and the Joe Frank dining hall. Most of the exchange students live in the more expensive one, so I would recommend it as well.

3. Academic life at host university

The campus is pretty big but there are campus busses who come regularly and take you everywhere. Sometimes when the weather was good we walked, which took us around 30min from the business school to our dorms. The classes have a fixed time schedule which made planning really easy, for us a class took place either mon-wed-fri and was 50min long or tue-thu which was 1h15min. Compared to classes at WU you have attendancy requirement and way more assignments-quizzes-exams. But don't get scared by it most classes were way easier than at WU since you get a lot of bonus points and not every assignment-quiz-exam counts to your final grade. Teachers are way more personal, they learn your names and show more interest in you and most of the classes are also smaller. However exchange students can only register for classes after all the other students which made finding a place in your preferred class a bit tricky.

5. Every day life in the host country

- Campus busses - Uni Campus and Athens in general felt pretty safe - free tennis courts, pickleball courts and gym - since uga is a big sports college you have a lot of sports competitions you can attend as a visitor which are also for free/pretty cheap (football, basketball, volleyball, swim & dive ...) - for nightlife you have a lots of bars (I think round about 90) in Athens, most of them are downtown which is a 10min bus ride or 30 min walk - There are university clubs but I wasn't part of any

6. Testimonial

To be honest, my time in the SEC was an amazing experience overall. I feel like the southern states are often misunderstood in Europe, but being there completely changed my perspective. The warmth of southern hospitality, the sunshine and weather, and the open, welcoming vibe of the people made the whole place feel incredibly special. We went to football games almost every weekend, and the tailgating culture plus the insane level of school spirit was even better than I could have imagined, it felt like the entire campus (and honestly the whole state) showed up for it. I also built really meaningful friendships, not only with other exchange students but especially with Americans, which made everything feel much more authentic and personal. Greek life was another huge part of the experience. It’s definitely more present in the South, and seeing it firsthand was honestly even crazier than what you see in movies. Beyond the big events, what I’ll remember most are the small moments too: the everyday campus routine, the traditions, and how proud everyone was to be part of the University of Georgia community, from the stadium atmosphere to the iconic Bulldog identity that’s basically everywhere you look.