USAC

My semester abroad at the University of Brighton was amazing. The classes I took were very interesting, and because they were only once a week, I was left with time to explore Brighton, London, and countries. Gatwick Airport is only a 30-minute train ride from campus, making it very easy to travel, and London is about an hour train. Brighton as a city is everything I could have wanted, small enough to always feel safe, but big enough to never get bored. The bus (the 25) goes from Falmer Campus straight into the center of town, making it easy to go to the beach, pier, pavilion, lanes, or to one of the countless coffee shops. At the university, the study abroad staff are all extremely kind and willing to help with anything, they also make the field trips (Bath and Stonehenge, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Paris) so fun! Overall, Brighton was an amazing experience!

Santiago, Chile is a wonderful place to study abroad especially with the USAC program. This was a very exciting and entertaining program from the culture to the lifestyle to the program directors and professors. At first it was hard for me because I did not know the language as well as I probably should have, but I progressed and learned a lot thanks to the directors, advisers and professors, they helped me to learn words and phrases and made it easy and fun for me to learn and not be discouraged. I would recommend for future students to learn basic words and phrases to get around and have small conversations so you don't always have to rely on others for knowledge. Learn quickly and talk to your peers and supervisors in Spanish and make a strong effort to learn the language and be willing to mess up, even if you don't want to look dumb, it is necessary to learn and talk because practice makes perfect. This helped me to progress and my host family was wonderful, I could talk to them and they helped me through my struggles in the language. I recommend making a budget and each time you spend money put it in to a chart and label them with food, trips, transportation..etc just so you know what is spent and so you can be on budget, this was important to my time as I was able to do everything I wanted to do and still stay within a budget. My favorite memory was traveling to the South of Chile with the program group and bonding more with the USAC family and having fun all together as a group. Overall it was a wonderful program and I progressed in my language, knowledge and personal goals, I highly recommend this program.

Studying abroad is an eye opening experience. I gained new knowledge and learned how to live in a different country all on my own. I gained personal growth experience more than I would have ever imagined that I would. I stayed with a host family and was able to learn the language easier than just taking a class. Being surrounded by a different language 100% of the time really helped me with the learning process. I went to Brazil knowing zero Portuguese and left being able to hold multiple conversations.

As it was my first time traveling outside of the country by myself, overall it was an amazing experience! Not only did they make the process super simple, the program was fun and life changing! I love how the classes were small and we were able to really learn and get to know the professor. The country was absolutely beautiful, the onsite staff was really kind and helpful and I would really recommend anyone who is interested in studying abroad to go with USAC!!

I lived Bilbao. It’s a great place if you like the city but also beaches and mountains. This coast is one of the most beautiful places i’ve ever been and the staff is really great. My teacher became a mom away from home and answered any questions we had. There are also tons of nearby towns that are beautiful and easily accessible. Bilbao is one of my favorite places and if I could study there again I would!