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where to go study in the states

P

plauz

Greenlighter
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
7
I finished high school last year and this year I'm not really doing anything. I didn't start college yet because I didn't really know what to choose.
My parents freak out because I do nothing (don't have a job). So they give me the opportunity to go somewhere with Education First (www.ef.com). It's an organisation for international education.

I'd love to do this so I'm coming to the states for 3 months (in January) to go to one of their international language schools. I'm going to have 26 classes of 40mins/week..most of the classes are english but I get to choose some classes myself too.

The problem I have is that I don't know where to go. They have schools all over the USA. Most of those schools/residences aren't on a campus.
When I'm in the states I really want to make American friends and get to hang out with them. It would be nice to meet some like-minded people who have the same recreational habits (pot/acid/mdma...). I also wanna party when I'm there ..maybe go to a dark psy or a breakcore/hardcore party (like I do here in Belgium :P).
What do you people think..should I pick a school that's part of a campus? I think I'll have a better experience when I can be on a campus. At the other schools that aren't on a campus I'll mostly just hang around with the other international students..and don't get to know much American ppl.

I have to choose the destination asap as I'm going to leave at the start of January. I'd like to go to California (SF)..I actually already decided I wanted to go to SF (school/residence that's on the campus of mills college)..but I can't go there ..it's full in february. I wanna go to California because I've been there once and I really liked it.
There's only 1 other destination in California that's also on a campus..that's San Diego (Alliant int'l univ)..but's that's not really a normal college I guess.
Another possibility I have is that I first go 3 weeks to San Diego and then spend the rest of my time at Mills College (SF)...but I think I won't want to leave San Diego after those couple of weeks.

You can view the destinations here:
(I'm going to link you to the us site because the BE site is in
dutch - the locations are a bit different though)
http://www.ef.com/master/ils/destinations/...stinations-_-us
please note that LA cal luth. and boston aren't possible..and a
location that's missing on this list is SF (school in downtown SF).

So the choices I have are:
SF (downtown)
LA (redondo beach)
San Diego (campus of alliant int'l university)
Santa Barbara
Seattle (Evergreen State College campus)
NY (marymount college)
Miami beach

Please help me out..I really don't know where I want to go.
Tell me anything you know about any of these locations. I know nothing about Seattle or Miami beach. Tell me something about the campuses..and the social life involved.
Should I go for the destination that appeals to me the most or rather go for a school that's on a campus? I think I'll choose for the latter.
So it might be seattle or ny or san diego...
What do you know about alliant int'l univ..it's not a normal
college right?
Tell me which schools/regions that are likely to have people who support my recreational habits :P. It's not that much of a problem for me to drop my recreational habits for a while (I've been abstaining for quite a while now)..but it would be nice to smoke some pot or drop some acid with new friends :D.

Hmm..any advice is appreciated!
I have to decide this monday
 
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If the SF thing doesn't work out, I would try Evergreen (in Seattle) because that is definitely a chill place. There's a lot of hippies, though, not so much people into electronic music but the weed scene there is probably one of the best in the country and I'd imagine students there would be into meeting foreigners.

Something to keep in mind is the fact that if you don't have a car, somewhere like Miami will be very hard to get around because the public transport is crappy there. Seattle has pretty good mass transit and is bikeable, although the weather is similar to Holland/Belgium--often raining and cloudy but not usually too cold.

Honestly, I'd stay away from Miami because it kind of sucks there if you are at all into subculture. There's not too much underground stuff there and my impression is that it's not a very down to earth place.

I've heard that San Diego is a bit conservative, but I haven't been there since I was a kid.

NY would be cool, too. It's pretty great there and full of every kind of person you could imagine.

So my votes go for Seattle and NY, and very much against Miami.

Oh, and even if you don't live on a campus there will probably be places to hang out at the school where you'll meet people pretty easily if you're out-going.
 
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I would look into Santa Barbara, especially if you are trying to party.. just be careful of HIV. but evergreen is also a great choice like champ said. I've heard it's very beautiful and people are more open with a better mind-set.
with your background and desires I vote for:
1) SF (if you can't get in then don't worry)
2) seattle
3) santa barbara
4) NY
Miami and LA might suck, and I'm not too sure about san diego. but the above four are all great choices and I think you will be very happy with whatever you choose. goodluck, peace!
 
Awesome! I think you made a good choice. The nature in the PNW is amazing, make sure you go camping and hiking while you're there. :D
 
Yeah I've already seen some pics of the nature...tripping there should (and will) be awesome :D
 
I dont really know any of those areas, however if you are interested in Boston I can help :)
 
I'm enjoying berkeley (right by sf), but studies have me sucked in enough that I don't know what the drug and/or edm scenes are like.

ebola
 
GEORGIA TECH is the place to be. I love it and it really is an awesome place with a lot of extremely intelligent students. Its not a school for "nerds". It is actually a lot of fun. :)
 
evergreen is pretty far away from seattle. but it's absolutely beautiful and there's tons of interesting people up there.

SF would be really awesome too.

Don't go to L.A. I live there and it's shitty; the women are gorgeous but black on the inside, and you have to drive everywhere, and everyone is fucking scenester-cool.
 
washington ftw :D

and miami ftl...i guess........:p

ummm, i'm stoned

peace :D :D
 
Hello-
I went to Evergreen for my undergrad-its an hour from Seattle by car, a pain in the ass any other way. A lot of foregin (Asian) students come there thinking it is Seattle but Olympia is a completely different place by any shot (except for maybe the quality of bud ;))
It's a rad place, I'm eternally thankful for finding it, as I lived on the East Coast as a kid and ran across it randomly. The people are really nice and it may be one of the most gorgeous places in the world (the NW). You're close to mountains, rainforests and right on the Puget Sound. BUT!!! It rains about twice as much in Olympia as Seattle and it rains a LOT in Seattle, so it is something to keep in mind if you are going to be there in the winter. However, in the summer it is paradise.
I would highly, highly recommend going there for a little bit of time. A close, tight knit community with a fairly decent music/arts scene for such a small town. For anyone else reading this interested in going, I would also recommend it but if you are into the sciences just spend your first two years then and then go to a big uni for your second two years.
As for Santa Barbara, I'm doing my PhD at UCSB now. It's a completely different place. Most of the people suck (as I am finding for most of southern California in general) and it is a drink-yourself-stupid-date-rape-gorgeous-girls-party-on-all-your-rich-parents-money-kinda place. There are a fair number of very intelligent undergrads that just ilke the party scene and probably could have gone to Berkeley witha little more effort in High school. But they can be hard to find and are generally antisocial. It will probably be much harder to make friends here than at Evergreen.
On the other hand, its on the beach, its always gorgeous weather here and Santa Barbara is a fairly nice little city with decent public transportation. The science program is great and it's fairly close to the shithole that is LA (although a pain to get to w/out a car).
Lastly, I think UCSB is much more like America than Evergreen. Evergreen is a bubble of hippies living in the woods smoking tons of grass and pretending to solve the worlds problems. UCSB is a mostly ridiculously shallow people drinking tons of shitty beer and not doing much of anything otherwise (besides getting great tans and/or surfing).
Hope this helps and if you have any other questions feel free to PM me.
Good luck.
 
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