Preparations and arrival, by Daniel Okret, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Hi everyone!
I am an Offshore and Dredging Engineering student at the Delft University of Technology. In addition to my regular studies I am participating in the Honours Programme Master. This fall I will be doing an exchange semester at the University of Wisconsin-Madison through the GlobalE3 programme. I chose this university because in addition to being well ranked, I believed it would provide me with the real American experience. The cheapest way to arrive in Madison is to fly to Chicago and take a bus from there to Madison (this safes you up to 500$!!). Because I had family in Chicago, this was even more ideal. After spending a long weekend in Chi Town my uncle drove me up to Madison. This was a very pleasant two-hour drive.
Before coming to the US I thoroughly researched the housing possibilities. The most common ones are living at dorms (which is really expensive) and living on apartments which are usually off campus. Because I was interested in the most American possible experience, I decided to live in a fraternity house. I really recommend this as I got to know many interesting people very quickly!
Upon arrival at the Frat all my housemates were very surprised with the amount of stuff I had with me. They were expecting many boxes and furniture, so one suitcase was a lot less than usual. My housemates were very welcoming and fun, and my roommate (it is very common to share a room in the US) was a cool American guy. They were all very interested in me and being the only foreigner at the house I got a lot of attention.
The first day my roommate and some housemates gave me a tour of the campus. It is huge and located on the beautiful lake Mendota! There are several supermarkets, museums, café’s, restaurants, sport centers, a football stadium with capacity for 80 thousand people, medical centers and much more. So there is almost no reason to leave the campus.
That’s all for now folks!
Cheers
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