[Dilmah G]

Gents.

I'm filling out my exchange application now for the States. Have Purdue, University of Illinois and Bellarmine as my preferences, but really hoping for Purdue at this stage. I'll found out whether my app is successful sometime after June 7th, and I'm applying to go on exchange basically for the whole of 2014.

I'm a Pol Sci+International Relations (they're the same at my current uni) and Management major, but I'm trying to leave as many elective units as possible to do over there. Not sure if ROTC is available, but I'd be keen to give it a go.

Are there any of us studying at those Colleges right now, or will be next year? Anyone nearby? I'd be keen on meeting some of you guys and LANing the hell out of some FS. Plus it would give me an excuse to bring my X-52 setup along with me.

I'm also planning to go into Michigan a few times, as I've been talking with a doctor there who does peanut and general nut allergy desensitisation, and to get that done whilst I'm over your end of the pond would be something I'd find fairly sweet.

So yes, anyone nearby? Anyone with advice?

[General Battuta]

GET IN SON

[Polpolion]

I'm also planning to go into Michigan a few times, as I've been talking with a doctor there who does peanut and general nut allergy desensitisation, and to get that done whilst I'm over your end of the pond would be something I'd find fairly sweet.

I live in Ann Arbor. Where in MI might you be looking to go?

[Klaustrophobia]

well i live nowhere near there, but if you want to hang at a beach that isn't full of stuff that wants to kill you (as long as it's daylight so as to avoid the shootings and stabbings and whatnot), come on down to VB.

[Nuke]

dont drink the beer

[Mobius]

What? Come to New York the next time!

[redsniper]

None of those are in Texas!

[Mongoose]

I'm nowhere near there, but if you happen to swing by the East Coast while you're here, maybe we can set something up.

Oh, and if you ever find yourself in an Outback Steakhouse, please forgive our ignorant stereotyping of your native land.

[Klaustrophobia]

but the steak is awesome.  and the bloomin onion.

oh, and hey, visit usafl.com to find your local team and play with them for a year.  maybe we'll even meet up at nationals that way

[Mongoose]

Oh yeah, the food's great, but he'd probably find the decor and menu language to be a riot.

[perihelion]

As a University of Illinois alum, don't.  Just don't.  There are so many better places to go than that soul-sucking abyss.

[Beskargam]

IU is where its at! Hoosiers! Don't go to Purdue, tis a silly place

[Dilmah G]

I'm also planning to go into Michigan a few times, as I've been talking with a doctor there who does peanut and general nut allergy desensitisation, and to get that done whilst I'm over your end of the pond would be something I'd find fairly sweet.

I live in Ann Arbor. Where in MI might you be looking to go?

Ann Arbor, actually! I initially wanted to straight out apply for UMich but there are no spots for 2014, unfortunately. I'd love to be able to see you if I end up making it!

well i live nowhere near there, but if you want to hang at a beach that isn't full of stuff that wants to kill you (as long as it's daylight so as to avoid the shootings and stabbings and whatnot), come on down to VB.

I'd be really keen to do that, AND play some AFL. I may also get to see Mobius too. Be advised though, I suck at AFL.

I'm nowhere near there, but if you happen to swing by the East Coast while you're here, maybe we can set something up.

Oh, and if you ever find yourself in an Outback Steakhouse, please forgive our ignorant stereotyping of your native land.

I'm hoping to do some traveling, so hopefully I'll be able to string seeing you guys together into some kind of logical order. Also it'd be hypocritical of me not to forgive you, we stereotype the hell out of you guys here too. Something to do with us being an island nation or something.

As a University of Illinois alum, don't.  Just don't.  There are so many better places to go than that soul-sucking abyss.

Ah really? Which faculty were you in? Or was it a general thing?

[Black Wolf]

I'd be really keen to do that, AND play some AFL. I may also get to see Mobius too. Be advised though, I suck at AFL.

Never fear, so do the Americans. Have you seen the scorelines they generally get in the USAFL?

I spent a couple of months over there a couple of years back. It's fun. It's very similar to here, except you have novelty value because you have an accent (which, in my experience, they quite liked, generally, and it was quite useful here and there). Be prepared to dispel a ridiculous number of myths though - it's truly funny how much the average American just honestly doesn't know/understand about Australia. They will believe you if you tell them there are drop bears.

Driving on the wrong side is relatively easy to get used to, but having the handbrake and all the stalks the wrong way around took me weeks to sort out. Make sure you check that your license is valid in Illinois - it should be (AFAIK it's valid everywhere int he US) but I was on the verge of a dispute about with a cop in California before he decided not to worry about it (I knew it was valid, but it might be good to be 100% sure for your own interest).

Will you be 21 while you're over there? If not, might be best to get a local fakie before you go rather than a US one - my WA license was accepted pretty much universally (course, I was a couple of years over 21 at the time), but they pretty obviously had no idea what it was supposed to look like - no reason they should. So not only would that make it easier to sneak the inherent dodginess of a fake through, it also seems less potentially disastrous to be caught with a fake foreign document than a fake US document on a student visa. There are lots of chain pubs, too, which was weird, but the booze is much cheaper over there than it is over here, so that's a big positive (though it gets steadily more expensive as you go east, for some reason). Also, the barmaids can drink while they're working (in some states at least). This is useful information, trust me.

It's going to be stupid cold, most likely, but don't bother bringing too much - clothes (especially winter clothes) are way, way cheaper over there - probably more so than the cost of shipping big numbers of your existing clothes and stuff over. In some really big shops you can get discounts for being a tourist too, with valid overseas ID, so keep your legit Aussie licence on you as well.

If you want to do some outdoorsy travelling, head west and south - the Rockies, and California had the best scenery and national parks from what I saw (which was a reasonable chunk of the country, if far from an exhaustive trip), and the Grand Canyon is definitely worth a trip on its own. I liked Austin, Boulder and San Francisco as far as specific towns went, and Yellowstone and Yosemite for National Parks.

If you want more of an indoors experience, head north east - Washington is a lot of fun, surprisingly, and the Smithsonian Air and Space museum is there (which I suspect will be on your itinerary). Be aware though, there're two, and the one with the big, cool stuff (like the shuttle and the SR-71) is a mammoth PITA to get to if you don't have your own car, so plan for that (we didn't, and I didn't get a chance to go, which is one of my biggest regrets from my trip). NYC is, I think, one of those love it or hate it type places - personally, I wasn't a fan, but the natural history museum was fantastic and well worth a look if you find yourself there.

Cost of living generally is cheaper in the US by probably, I don't know, 10-20% or so, but that varies enormously depending on where you are, far  more so than here. Also, learn the local customs on tipping as quickly as possible - it's a mammoth PITA to figure out at first. If you're not sure, add 10% for just about any service more involved than a shop assistant, or a dollar per drink at a bar, but it varies from state to state and person to person. They most get paid terrible wages, and rely on the tips (I know, it's nutty, but that's how they run it over there), so not tipping for anything short of atrocious service is considered pretty much unacceptable. It's hard to judge how much it would cost to actually live over there, since I was spending at a holiday rate, so others might be better suited to suggesting a budget for you.

I had a great time while I was there, and, while I wouldn't want to live there on any kind of longer term basis, a year of study abroad would be a lot of fun (I know the yanks that came over here when I lived on student housing had almost universally great times, so I suspect it's comparable). Good luck getting in!

[General Battuta]

NYC is a ****ty place to visit but a pretty great place to live (if you can afford it.) Drop by

[SpardaSon21]

If you ever end up in Orange County, California, I'd love to hang out and grab a beer or two.  Yes, I have to specify state here because there's an Orange County in Florida as well.  Apparently people like to name their counties after their fruit farming industries.

[Mongoose]

Heh, it's always fun reading an outside perspective like that.  I didn't realize our clothing was that much cheaper for one, though I guess when you have the behemoth that's Wal-Mart throwing its bloat around, that's to be expected.

But yeah Dilmah, if you do want more info on some of the more mundane everyday stuff that BW touched on, ask away.  I'll agree that depending on which school of those you wind up at, it can get pretty freaking cold in the winter (especially in Michigan), so be prepared for that sort of thing if you're not used to it.  And it probably goes without saying, but don't forget about the seasonal flip-flop.

[Black Wolf]

NYC is a ****ty place to visit but a pretty great place to live (if you can afford it.)

That was the impression I came away with, but a lot of other people I've spoken to who've vistited absolutely froth over the place, so YMMV.

[Klaustrophobia]

If you ever end up in Orange County, California, I'd love to hang out and grab a beer or two.  Yes, I have to specify state here because there's an Orange County in Florida as well.  Apparently people like to name their counties after their fruit farming industries.

there's probably an orange county in every state.


oh, and one more bit of cultural advice, "thongs" are NOT shoes over here.  keep that in mind when asking for help at the store. 

[perihelion]

As a University of Illinois alum, don't.  Just don't.  There are so many better places to go than that soul-sucking abyss.

Ah really? Which faculty were you in? Or was it a general thing?

College of Engineering in general.  I can definitely speak for the departments of mechanical and civil engineering.  It's a long, sordid story, but it basically has to do with the lengths to which the organization was willing to go to maintain their "top five" rating in various engineering disciplines and the cost incurred on the students (mostly the students) and faculty.  I think, in their desperation to remain "the best," they lost sight of what got them there in the first place.  There was no camaraderie between students and faculty.  They were the masters, and we were merely untrustworthy servants who probably shouldn't have been admitted to the program in the first place (we all had been awarded research assistantships or fellowships, if we weren't good enough to be there, why did they invite / PAY us to come?). 

Screw that.  I've been around in academia.  I know it isn't like that everywhere.  It sure as hell isn't like that at Texas A&M.  UIUC need to pull their head out.  My whole group of peers had been planning to get our Ph. D's.  We had bloated opinions of ourselves, sure, but we'd aced undergrad, and we were ready to change the world.  All but three of us said, "screw this," and got out of academia and research entirely.  Of those three, I know for sure that two of them went back to their undergrads to finish.  I'm not positive about the third, but I don't think she stayed at UIUC either.