Exchange Report

Obviously due to the distance it's best to fly and book early. I booked the flight to the US as soon as I had my VISA starting date and would recommend to apply for the VISA as soon as possible, especially since VISA rules can be quite chaotic at times. For my flight back I did not book anything until I was in the US because I planned to do some travels. Other than that my preparations included choosing the courses I planned on taking.

I chose to go for a student dorm, I researched some other options but everything else was more expensive, or very far away. This meant I had to share a room with another person and a bathroom with three other people. At first I thought this would be a big issue as I had never shared bedrooms before but since I got on quite well with my roommate it was ok. Due to being in a student dorm, I was very close to the university, which is a huge advantage since I was able to be in class in just a few minutes, additionally I was able to really be active in student life which people who chose to get their own apartment could not.

This was great! Due to being able to choose all my courses I had a lot of interesting courses from many different disciplines. There are two weeks at the beginning of the semester during which you can drop and switch courses. Most classes are quite small compared to WU and professors remember student names, so it's much more personal. All the courses have at least one weekly lecture and almost all of them have mandatory attendance. The facilities were a bit older than WU in most buildings but totally acceptable. Course recommendations: My favourite course was "Global energy security" with Thomas Russo, the course has weekly tasks but overall the effort is manageable and it gives an extensive view on security and combines politics, business and economic subjects. Another really interesting course was "World on a Plate" with Mya Price. It had a different expert coming in every week, who talked about how they work in the food sector. We also had to do a volunteering experience which I had never experienced in a course before and it really taught me a lot. Other courses I had were: "Climate Change & Developing Countries", "Castles & Chivalry: France" and "Human Capital in Organizations". One very bad course I dropped was "Economics of Outer Space"

The university is very centrally located in DC and the city is quite safe compared to the rest of the US and has well developed public transit systems. I highly recommend joining a student organization, there are a multitude of different organizations which do anything from sports and dance to drama, debate, culture, arts etc.. It's a great way to meet local students and actually have a social life. People do not really socialize with people in class. Additionally the nightlife in DC is quite bad, the clubs usually close at 2am. The university holds events for exchange students which are also fun to join. Lastly be ready to gain some weight. Unless they really watched calory intake or were very active all the exchange students I knew gained a few kilos compared to their home country. Food is just kind of less filling and unhealthier.

The most important parts for me was choosing courses I was interested in, joining the debating club where I met many interesting people and got the opportunity to travel for competitions. Another highlight was travelling in general, due to it's location it's easy to get from DC to anywhere in the US and neighbouring countries or islands.