North Carolina State University
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Eastern Travels
With finals nearing their end, I thought it would be a good time to post an update with some affordable travelling you can do during term time. The two trips I took toward the end of April cost less than $100 each for a full weekend away and meant I was able to visit Asheville, Boone and Mount Mitchell in North Carolina and fit in a trip to Atlanta, Georgia.
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Spring Break in Puerto Rico
Jake Bell, English Literature & American Studies, North Carolina State University, USA Its safe to say that even before coming to study in America, spring break was something I was looking forward to. The week off in March (at NC State, this is Friday 3rd to Monday 13th) is a week in which everyone living on-campus must vacate halls. We decided to spend Saturday to Monday in Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory in the Caribbean.
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North Carolina State: First Impressions
Hi Manchester on the Road! I’m Jake, a second year student studying English Literature & American Studies. I’m spending my second semester studying English Literature and Political Science at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh. Now that I’ve been at NCSU for a while I thought it’d be a good idea to do a blog post on my first impressions of the university and the city. The first thing to overcome was the flights – I looked around for the cheapest option but that meant flying from Newcastle to London, London to Miami, and Miami to Raleigh – which took over 24 hours. I got to my dorm room at about…
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8 THINGS YOU ONLY LEARN FROM STUDYING IN THE US
By Erdoo Yongo (North Carolina State University, USA) 1. You always seem to have some kind of test – whether it is a midterm or pop-up quiz, these are so frequent that after the first few tests you stop being surprised when your professor issues you with a test. 2. You have to submit papers via hard copy – for those of us who are used to staying up all night before an essay is due and submitting it online with only minutes to spare, this is quite a hassle. 3. Attendance contributes to your final grade – most professors take attendance every class to monitor students attendance and usually…
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JAMAICA JAMAICA
By Erdoo Yongo (North Carolina State University, USA) So I went to Jamaica for spring break and the first thing I noticed when I stepped off the plane was the heat. Everyone working at the airport were super chilled and friendly. After the tedious task of getting through immigration and customs, I was picked up by my airport transfer. I would recommend this method of getting to your hotel as taxis are known for taking people to the wrong places. It took about an hour and a half to get to Negril from the airport, but the journey was relaxed and the driver was very talkative so that made it seem…
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NOW YOU’RE IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
By Erdoo Yongo (North Carolina State University, USA) As I stated in my first post, before heading off to my exchange university, North Carolina State University, I went to New York. On New Year’s Day I boarded the plane from London Gatwick, not knowing what to expect from the USA – especially New York, but still feeling excited. The best thing about a late flight was that as the plane was landing all you could see were lights. Flashing lights… I guess I should not have been surprised as New York is the city that never sleeps! After an eight hour flight, my tiredness outweighed the excitement that I was…
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Predeparture Thoughts Before NCSU
By Erdoo Yongo (North Carolina State University, USA) It is the morning before I leave for the US and I am feeling a mixture of emotions – on one hand I am feeling really happy and excited for the adventure ahead, but on the other hand I am feeling quite sad because it obviously difficult to say goodbye to family for such a long time. It is really strange because I honestly do not understand how quickly I got to this moment – about to leave to study abroad for five months. The University of Manchester application process is still fresh in my mind – I do not know whether…
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Impressions on Returning Back to Manchester
By Christopher Tenant-Flowers (North Carolina State University, USA) So I’ve been back at Manchester for nearly four months now and I’m still not entirely sure if I’m ever actually going to be totally used to it after my time in the USA. Whilst when in the USA, I found there were so many things I would like to transfer from England to the USA. In the classroom it is completely the opposite, and there are so many aspects of American university that I would like to see brought into the UK university system and teaching methods. Going back to straight lectures, especially two hour ones, has probably been the biggest struggle,…
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Belated Reflections About A Great Year
Firstly I am very sorry about the lateness of this post. I have only recently returned to England and I thought I would (belatedly) share some reflections about my period abroad. I was really supposed to do this around the time I was saying goodbye to NC State but I didn’t for a few reasons. Firstly this would have clashed with exams, goodbyes, last minute plans and packing. All of which at the time are excellent forms or procrastination. Then once I had said goodbye to North Carolina and begun a few months of travelling I was frankly just extremely busy. But finally, and probably the closest to being the…
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Trips, Travels and Adventures!
By Christopher Tenant-Flowers (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA). So having just returned from that holiday made famous in numerous American TV shows and films: Spring Break! Now seemed like a good time to tell y’all about some of the trips I have been luckily enough to go on during my time here. What follows are the much abbreviated highlights. Sorry for skimming over some things but otherwise you would be confronted with an almighty essay. Hopefully this gives you a brief taste though. Fall Break: This was a great little holiday roughly half way through the first semester here which I guess equates to the NCSU version…
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School Life
By Chris Tenant-Flowers (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA). Hello again! firstly let me apologise for my absence from this blog. I really didn’t believe it had been as long as it had been since I posted but time is really, really flying by this year. I do plan to be able to post a few more of these in the coming weeks as I have a brief gap in my workload it seems (fingers crossed). With that in mind it seems like a good time to perhaps talk about some of the differences in school life that I have experienced over here. This is after all an…
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Go Wolfpack
By Chris Tenant-Flowers. Ok, so I’ve been here In Raleigh North Carolina for about two weeks now so here are some of my first impressions: I think the most obvious thing for me to mention is the whole school spirit thing. I was told to expect this but it has still caught me off guard. People love their school and take great pride in going there and it is no different here at NC State. I’m not saying we in Manchester or England generally don’t take pride in our universities but not like here. You may see the odd UoM hoodie in Manchester but here genuinely one in every 6…
