King's Study Abroad Stories – Page 38 – Student experiences written by outbound and inbound King's study abroad students

Oriana Knight, 2014-2015 at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Accommodation

I arrived in Santiago with one suitcase and no idea of where I was going to stay. I arrived in July 2014 and my first thought was “It is freezing!”. Of course, I knew it would be winter in South America when I arrived, but I certainly never thought it was going to be so cold. Make sure you take some warm clothes, as the temperature really drops during the winter months! I had reserved a hostel for the first three nights so I went there before attempting to find accommodation. I was quite lucky in that I found some on my first day of searching. I stayed in a student house called Casa Suecia, which is a house of 32 students in Providencia, Santiago. Most students in Santiago stay in the areas Bellavista, Providencia or Irarrazaval, as they are convenient for most of the universities in the city and are also pretty central for exploring the city both by day and by night! An average rent in Santiago can be as little as 180.000 Chilean pesos a month (around £180 in GBP), although of course there are a lot more expensive also.

Anna Grimaldi, 2012-2013 at University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Top ten things

Belo Horizonte offers an extensive list of museums and galleries which will no doubt be on the top of your cultural to-do list, but in case you’re looking for something a little less generic, here is a list of the local gems which can offer a more personal experience of the city.

University of Melbourne, Diana Jaganjac, 2015-2016

Studying

The University of Melbourne boasts 22 discipline-specific faculties with courses available in over 100 subjects. The university is also the number one research university in Australia and spends $850 million on research every year. If you decide to study abroad at the University of Melbourne you will most certainly be in with a chance of being part of this research. The vast availability of courses means that whatever academic discipline you desire to study, it is likely that you will find it at Melbourne.

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Georgetown University, Josh Duxbury, 2015-2016

Top 10 Things

1. The area

The campus itself is in the area of Georgetown: a small, affluent area of DC, featuring picturesque rows of townhouses and excellent opportunities for both high street and high-end shopping (M Street). It’s close to the waterfront and a few small national parks, so it is a very pretty place to be, too. It’s also not too far from the more central areas of DC (Dupont and Foggy Bottom), so jogging to the Lincoln Memorial for a morning run isn’t too much of an arduous task.

University of Pennsylvania, Amy Norris, 2015-2016

Top 10 Things

1) Campus

When I chose a university for my undergraduate, I was determined to stay away from campus institutions; I wanted to be able to escape the uni bubble easily and not get bored of the same five pubs before the end of my three years. However, Penn has the best of both worlds; the campus is everything Vampire Weekend sung about when I was in my early teens, with ivy clad walls and secluded quadrangles, but it fades out into the city so you never feel claustrophobic. I definitely miss having all of my friends live a maximum of 10 minutes away now that I’m back in London!