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Student experience at Illinois

Elizabeth studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 1 academic year (2014-2015) as part of her American Studies degree at Swansea University. Here are some of the comments she made about her experience: 

Elizabeth Gardner Illinois

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"The campus was huge and like its own town and frat parties were just like I expected – full of red plastic cups! As much as I was there for the typical American experience, as an American Studies student my aim was to take a wide range of modules that would give me ideas for my dissertation and to make the most of the resources available."

Biggest Highlights

"Wanting the full American college experience, I also joined a sorority...I lived in the sorority house with 53 other girls which was so much fun but was more than just movie nights and frat parties. Philanthropy was very important to my sorority and there were many fundraising events that we took part in to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation. My favourite moment of the year was the wish reveal event where we announced how much money we raised that year and met one of the Wish Kids whose wish we had financed."

"During the year, I visited over 16 states, some with friends and some alone, and saw incredible sights like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Parks."

Elizabeth Gardner Grand Canyon

Being Independent

"As fun as it was to be studying in America, it didn’t come without its challenges. It’s a very independent experience to move across the world by yourself and arrange visas, flights, and accommodation and then to live on a huge campus which is so different from Swansea without knowing anyone. Lots of the friends I made were American and over the breaks, instead of travelling, they’d go home to their families. This meant that there weren’t always people to travel with and I had to do it alone. My biggest challenge on my year abroad was being independent enough to organise my own trips and be comfortable enough to do them alone. Although it could be scary, I was proud to say that I did it."

Reflection

"My year abroad was definitely the best year of my life and I’m so glad that I did it and would definitely encourage others to study abroad. I enjoyed it so much that I’m looking into applying to American universities for postgraduate degrees and I’m already researching more places to travel to."