The last 5 months have definitely been the most exciting and interesting of my life and have passed by very quickly. I am now back in my flat share in Berlin and have only just realized how much I have experienced in the last six months.
But let’s start from the beginning:
The application
With the nice help of the CoCo team, everything went pretty easy. My biggest tip here would be to submit everything as early as possible, because then you usually get a quick answer and, if everything goes well, you can stick to the schedule, especially when it comes to accommodation. I was one of the lucky few who got one of the limited six-month contracts. I lived in Oxford North, an off-campus housing about 15 minutes’ walk from the university. The housing itself is definitely not the best, but you quickly get to know a lot of nice people and there is a small pool and a small gym. But be careful: a lot of exchange students live there, so don’t be disappointed if there is a lot of talk in German. Read more student reviews on Anycountyprivateschools.
It continues with arriving on site
If you’ve done housing, insurance, and any other paperwork on time, everything should go smoothly.
But then it gets tough at the university, because as an exchange student you cannot, unlike the American students, take courses online beforehand, but have to take part in the so-called “class crashing”. That means that you have to go to a lot of courses in the first two weeks and ask the professors whether they will still include you in the course. This turned out to be quite difficult, especially in often overcrowded subjects such as business administration and one is often turned away. But don’t worry, you will already be getting courses, but you have to be prepared for the fact that it may not be exactly the four you wanted or not at the optimal time.
To my courses
I personally can’t recommend social media marketing with Prof. Papoulias, because it was very theoretical and the professor didn’t try hard to make it more exciting and the course involves a lot of work.
Buyer Behavior with Prof. Steven Chen
If you are interested in psychological and sociological content related to economics, I can highly recommend the course. The professor also tries very hard to keep the topics current and interesting for the students.
Entertainment Business with Prof. Lake
The course offers a good insight into how many areas of entertainment work. Professor Lake is a very pleasant person and from his long service in a high position at Disneyland he has quite a few stories to tell.
Organizational Behavior with Prof. Mostafa
Here, too, business administration is underpinned a little with psychology. The course content was sometimes interesting, but not always and the professor seemed a bit unfriendly at first, but that also subsides over time. Overall, this course (with the # 2) was my favorite. What I found best here were the many guest speakers who came to visit from time to time and told us about their person and their job.
But now to the most beautiful, and for many most important, leisure time!
Fullerton is not in itself a particularly great or interesting city. There is downtown Fullerton, where are some restaurants, bars and clubs. But their big plus is their proximity to many cool cities. For example, it usually takes less than an hour to get to LA and just over an hour to get to San Diego. The travel time always depends very much on the traffic, because unfortunately you are often stuck in traffic jams. Las Vegas and even Mexico can also be easily reached by car and are definitely worth a visit. One of my highlights was the Grand Canyon, in general I would recommend you to visit as many national parks as you can because it is a unique experience!
Some beaches are also within easy reach: Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach. Laguna Beach is definitely the most beautiful from nature , it looks like paradise! But Newport and Huntington have a little promenade and lots of cute cafes and restaurants to offer. But here you have to consider that it can take 30-60 minutes by car. So if the beach is very important to you, maybe you should take another look at the university on Long Beach, which is not exactly one of the most beautiful. (Another little insider tip is the San Clemente Beach, it is a little further away, but not so touristy and you can surf there!)
In general, many people ask about the car. So in Fullerton itself and even for the beach, three or four people can get together and take an uber or lyft. But when it comes to city trips or the like, I would recommend renting a car yourself or joining up with friends.
Two other highlights of my stay abroad were Canada and Hawaii. Of course, it was a lot of money at the time, but I am very happy that I made the decision, because you will never travel from Germany to one of the two countries so spontaneously and easily.
