Scotland and beyond! Past Review
By A student (Middlebury College) - abroad from 01/16/2017 to 05/27/2017 with
IFSA: St. Andrews - University of St. Andrews
Independence and confidence while traveling. I also got to see many parts of the world, which was amazing. Studying abroad can definitely be challenging and stressful but ultimately is was an awesome experience and very worthwhile!
Personal Information
| How much international exposure did you have prior to this program? | 1 month - 6 months |
Review Your Program
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* Overall educational experience
Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc. |
If possible avoid taking the lecture classes intended for first years. The lecture classes are usually large and the smaller discussion groups can be a bit boring. |
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* Host Country Program Administration
On-site administration of your program |
IFSA-Butler is amazing, very available and eager to help make the experience as good as possible |
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* Housing:
How satisfied were you with your living arrangements? |
I lived in David Russell Apartments which are a long walk from main campus, I wish I lived in a more central location. |
| * Food: |
Dining hall food, dinner in particular, is not great. My hall did not offer lunch on week days or dinner on weekends which was too bad. |
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* Social & Cultural Integration:
How integrated did you feel with the local culture? |
It was hard to integrate into the social culture at St Andrews because I was only there a semester and also spent several weekends and the holidays traveling with other study abroad students. But I do think I got to experience Scottish culture in general by traveling around the country and going to ceilidhs and pubs. |
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* Health Care:
How well were health issues addressed during the program? |
I had no personal experience but IFSA-Butler went over how to get access to health care during orientation. |
| * Safety: |
St Andrews is super safe, I am a small female and never nervous walking alone even late at night. |
| If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? |
Yes
There are definitely down sides to going as part of a small program. You kind of get locked in being friends with the people in the program which is nice in the beginning but makes it difficult to branch out and get to know other study abroad students and local students. However IFSA-Butler was very supportive and helpful and made the transition as smooth as possible. They also organized some pretty amazing trips to places like the Isle of Skye and the Argyll Forest which were incredible and not to be missed. |
Finances
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* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?
(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost) |
There are definitely affordable options for food in town, generally the places operated by the university are the cheapest places to get food. But the portions were small so I bought food more often than I typically would. |
| Not including program expenses, about how much money did you spend on food and other expenses each week? | Definitely less that $100 especially when I wasn't traveling but that's because most food was covered in program costs. |
Language
| * Did your program have a foreign language component? | No |
Other Program Information
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* Where did you live?
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* Who did you live with?
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* Who did you take classes with?
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| About how many local friends did you make that you will likely keep in touch with? | 0 |
A Look Back
| * What did you like most about the program? |
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| * What could be improved? |
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| * What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? | Its ok if you aren't having fun 100% of the time - study abroad is real life and its going to have its up and downs just like life at home. Don't stress yourself out about always feeling you need to get the most out of everyday or experience. But over all the experience will definitely be positive! |
Individual Course Reviews
| Course Name/Rating: |
Computational Astrophysics |
| Course Department: | Astronomy |
| Instructor: | Peter Woitke |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | Very challenging and pretty time consuming. It was a bit harder to access the instructors for help outside of class than I am used to back home but they were very very helpful during class time. I also learned valuable programming skills. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: |
