Apologies to anyone who actually reads my blog…

because of my lack of posts. I have a lot of post ideas in the works, I just have to realise them, heh.

However, coming up in the next week is a post on dealing with the fact that your mum’s no longer around.

And…the differences between going to uni in America vs. the UK and Australia. As I’ve found out this summer from my friends who go to uni elsewhere, our first-year experiences have been EXTREMELY different. 

This got me thinking: as international school kids we’re extremely lucky that our schools take it upon themselves to present us with university choices that represent education from everywhere in the world. But what isn’t really represented to us are the realities of the differences between those places. They’ll tell you broadly about the differences in the curriculum, but day-to-day living isn’t really talked about as much. There are a lot of things that your counsellor doesn’t (or can’t) tell you about.

That’s why I started this site in the first place - to write about the differences between America and Asia and to write about the things that no teacher or parent ever really impressed upon me before I moved. But catching up with old friends made me realise I should write about the differences between American universities and universities elsewhere.

I am by no means an expert, all I have to share is my experience as a current American university student, and my experience as a graduate from a high school that knew the UK university process through and through (as it was a British high school), and knew all the important things about Australian universities. Of course, I can also draw on the things my friends tell me about what uni is really like.

I don’t really know who reads this, but I guess I’d like to be able to give people like me, who are trying to navigate the intricacies of American life, a blog full of things that they are able to relate to, and to give current international school students what I didn’t - a source of information that could tell me the things I’d like to have known, that a uni website couldn’t tell me.

2. Finance 245: Chasin’ that paper, rollin’ in the dough

This class aims to teach you the value of money. In order to teach you this the lecturer has decided to give you cashflow issues that result in you always proclaiming “I’m broke” and never having actual cash on your person. 

Uni is expensive. For this post I’m only going to tackle “spending money” so, money that is NOT spent on your tuition fees, NOT spent on housing, and NOT spent on a meal plan, should you have one. 

I mean the money you spend on cabs, lattes, that  liquor that you got your 21-yr-old friend to buy you, the coat check money, the “let me in to this club money”, the new outfits, etc etc.

We need a lot of shit in our lives. You need money to pay for the “experience” part of uni, and there’s usually three ways to pay for it:

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As promised in my last post, where I said I would do an in-depth analysis of my 3 life courses, I give you: my in depth analysis! (part 1)

(Which isn’t really in-depth, and isn’t really analysis because this post would be too long then)

1. International Studies 300: Culture Shock in 21st Century Midwestern America

Why specify “midwestern” you ask? Because, well, America’s flippin huge and by huge I really do mean of wooly mammoth proportions. If we exclude China you could probably fit all of SE Asia on its landmass. So, while yes there is a huge difference between America and Asia, the culture shock experience in each region of America is different. Not all of America is New York or LA. And SE Asia kittens, thou shalt get over this and fast.

CARS. HIGHWAYS. DRIVE ON THE RIGHT. And like, really, no, there is no subway/high-speed rail/mag-lev train/cheap taxi/underground etc what have you. We have a campus bus service (but really just walk) and a Central blah blah Transit Authority bus that apparently will take thee far and wide. You are going to walk all over campus. This is to be expected. That it will take an entire day’s journey to go shop for a couple of hours at a decent mall? Not expected. You don’t want to be stuck taking le god-awful bus. Befriend yourself someone in possession of a car. And be nice and pay for gas. Yeah. That. You probably didn’t have to think about that in SEAsia.

Food. Midwest America will introduce you to the inner food critic you never knew you had in you.

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Everything I learnt in college I learnt outside of the lecture hall.

…

Ok, that is not entirely true. I learnt a lot of things in lecture, but, I would imagine that like most undergrads I promptly stopped caring about them as soon as I left the hallowed lecture hall. (Of course, the importance of everything I learnt tripled when midterms and finals came around)

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