I'm planning on studying abroad for a semester at Washington University (the one in St Louis, WashU). How is the state of Missouri? Safe? Not safe?
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University student travelling abroad
St. Louis has a 3.5x higher crime rate than Chicago. Make of that what you will
Damn it sounds like shit. Whats your knowledge of WashU as an instituion though? Even though Missouri seems like a rough area, is it still worth it to go because of WashU or nah?
>Whats your knowledge of WashU as an instituion though?
it's not bad if you're already living the area but as a destination? You could do better
Ok cool thanks for the advice. Looking it up online I got the impression that it was quite prestigious.
It's a good school don't get me wrong, but I'm just coming from the angle of this being a travel board
What other schools are on the list of places you can go?
In the US there's quite a few...
University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of California, Santa Cruz
College of Charleston
Elon University
University of Kentucky
Mercer University
Mount Holyoke College
University of New Mexico
Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute
Louisiana State University
Northern Arizona University
yeah the only one interesting would be UC santa cruz
That's a stoner school. If you aren't a lazy frick that likes to smoke weed all day you won't enjoy it.
Northern Arizona University is in Flagstaff which is kind of a cool place especially if you like SighSee but its a pretty small town.
UC Santa Cruz used to be famous for not assigning letter grades until Fall 2001
>In a dramatic step, professors at the University of California at Santa Cruz voted yesterday to require letter grading for the first time in the campus' 35-year history. "This certainly sounds the death knell of UC Santa Cruz as we know it," said one student observer, Patrick McHugh, 21. "It was an effort to regularize UC Santa Cruz."
>The Santa Cruz campus, which opened as an alternative to the more traditional University of California campuses, is one of only a few colleges across the country to use a narrative evaluation system instead of grades. It is the only UC campus not using grades.
https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-Santa-Cruz-To-Start-Using-Letter-Grades-2773570.php
go with LSU. best mix of prestige and hot bawds
St. Louis is like its fellow river cities Louisville and Cincinnati in that it has some genuinely charming neighborhoods, very affluent areas where old money continues to congregate (though more and more of it goes to Florida and Texas every year) and sort of old America charm that you don't usually get elsewhere.
I've likened them to a vastly more moderate version of South Africa. There is a massive gap between haves and have-nots, but the barrier of entry is low to having a pretty comfortable life in a walkable, green and aesthetically pleasing neighborhood. If you transposed Soulard into NYC, LA, SF or Chicago it would cost $12m to buy a house there.
RPI or NAU would be my 1 and 2 choise in that order. UCSZ and LSU are OK.
RPI is cool. Troy/Albany/Schenectady is actually a pretty cool and charming part of the country. Take the train south and in two hours you're in the Big Apple for $30 fare, not bad. Two hours north by car and its the prettiest mountains east of the Mississippi (OK, perhaps debatable...but the Adirondacks are objectively great).
I would live there if I could. Flagstaff is one of the last great western cities. Washington U would probably be my second choice, ultimately.
>Flagstaff is one of the last great western cities
hardly a city, just sprawl in between a highway intersection.
srsly
Suuuuuper hot b***hes tho and they’re everywhere
Agreed with Northern Arizona U, it's in a hippie/ski town and is very easy for in state students to get in so parties and bawds galore
On the other hand, the city is pretty damn expensive since it's a year-round tourist destination
What website are you using to check for university rankings for International Relations majors because Washington University in St. Louis is neither a member nor an associate of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs. If you are an International Relations major, you should be studying abroad for a semester at schools that are part of APSIA.
Also, I strongly suggest you do not give up so easily on applying to foreign schools such as Japanese universities for your semester abroad. For example, Ritsumeikan University is the only full time Japanese member of APSIA while a few other Japanese universities are just associates of APSIA such as Waseda University. But don't let that fact deter you from applying to prestigious Japanese universities that are not part of APSIA such as Keio University and Tokyo University.
>The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) is a non-profit educational organization of graduate schools of international affairs, with 38 members and 30 affiliates around the world. Started as a network of American graduate schools in the mid-1970s, APSIA was incorporated in 1989 and grew into an international association, with member and affiliate schools in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. APSIA seeks to "advance international understanding, prosperity, peace, and security through the people and ideas shaped by our schools."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Professional_Schools_of_International_Affairs
https://apsia.org/
>University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz is top of that list by about a mile. You'd be on some of the best coastline in the US. San Francisco is only like 90 minutes away. You could go up and do Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Sequoia National Park, Big Sur, Carmel and Monterrey, Pinnacles, Santa Barbara, LA, Orange County, etc etc. Flights to vegas are like $100 round-trip. You'd get to do endless awesome shit.
Charleston would be a distant second. Every other school on that list looks abysmal.
Louisville is a lot less charming than it used to be. They had a police shooting where some drug dealer used his girlfriend as a human shield when the cops showed up. He shot at the cops and they killed the girlfriend. The city had massive riots for months. Half the police force quit. The city has never recovered and crime is up by like 300 percent. St Louis was never nice.
>Louisville
I used to live there. Sad to see what it's become. My dad's old neighborhood used to be like 20% black, now it's 100% and rundown.
My sister lived there too, her place used to be broken into all the time. The video cameras always showed black assailants.
The school bussing made my family leave to another district. They put kids as young as 5 on school busses for 6 hours a day just to equal out races in Louisville schools. It's moronic and only made all schools worse of course. I used to sit on a bus and go to a school across town. I had to wait hours in traffic and then for the bus itself when it was late.
my vote is LSU.
Complete dogshit. You’d be insane to pass up an opportunity to study at Wash U for any of these schools. Honestly living in a shitty area is the best for school. This is a travel board OP. Pick the school with the best academics and just visit the cool. Buy a car and do some road trips.
He's only studying for one semester, who gives a frick about how good the school is.
LSU is far more fun
How the frick do you know? Basically one anon in this whole thread offered an even slightly informed take. The rest of this is just reddit-tier "hm this is just my conjecture from watching football games on TV and shit i might've read on the computer"
>How the frick do you know?
The angel Gabriel revealed it to me
Wash U is the best school on that list, if you're coming to learn then stick with Wash U and watch your step.
Do you want a prestigious university or a fun place to be? Also fall or spring?
If you're fall, I recommend a school with a popular football team.
Salt Lake City is nice, so I'd recommend University of Utah. University of Colorado also.
The ones the other anon listed that have popular football teams are LSU and Kentucky.
If you're into the south, look for any school in the 'SEC' (besides Vanderbilt), Clemson University, or Florida State University.
Those aren't schools in OPs list.
ah, didn't see he had a list
Yeah he should definitely go with LSU. Backup should be Kentucky
go to University of Wisconsin
Is prisitige that big of a deal if its just a semester? not like he's getting a degree from them
yeah exactly
He should just go to LSU during a fall semester
I'll look into it. Its competitive to get into the Jap unis so ill probably have to settle for one in the US. Also my degree is international relations so if i was in america next semester id be involved with all the political shit goin on and as u know this 2024 election is gonna be huge so i really wanna get be apart of that (obviously not by voting but just experiencing the whole thing).
Soz bad english
Im tired
If you want to get a perspective on what different groups in the US are like, go to a bigger school. WashU or LSU are probably those things and though Louisiana is unlike anywhere else in the US (its just culturally different there, its hard to explain) and you'd be able to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras which is in February and spring break on the Gulf Coast two very American college experiences.
Election season during college is not really noticeable at all, especially if you are a STEM major trying to not frick up your GPA. You will be too busy with classes to care.
>STEM major
>International Relations
I see you weren't an English major.
Are you studying for an undergraduate degree or a graduate degree?
Undergrad
Washington University decided not to enter bid for 2020 presidential debate because the estimated minimum cost of hosting a debate was $7 million from the university's own pockets. This means there is no guarantee Washington University will host the 2024 presidential debate.
https://www.studlife.com/news/2019/04/04/washington-university-not-to-enter-bid-for-2020-presidential-debate
>Whats your knowledge of WashU as an instituion though?
It's very good. They have a strong medical school.
People really want to waste the best years of their lives in the worst places
Missouri is one of the worst states in the US, if not the worst. It's flat and boring with a shitty mid-continent extreme climate. The place is full of both the worst types of Black folk and rednecks. St. Louis is basically a wasteland of projects and de-industrialization with a few blocks around the arch being OK areas. East St. Louis on the other side of the river is even worse. All the Mississippi River cities are shitholes like this actually. It's a shame, very few of them really do much at all with their waterfront that would otherwise be an attractive place to spend time.
Oh wait I just realised they offer options to travel to East Asia. Forget the U.S. I'll apply to Kyoto University instead. Seems a lot better than WashU and all the other U.S university choices.
Washington University is world class, but St. Louis is a total dump
If you're into outdoor activities, I'd also recommend University of Colorado and University of Utah.
They both (now) have popular football teams, so that's 7 days of fun activities to do during the fall semester. If you're into hiking, they have hiking nearby, and if you're into skiing there's some of the best ski resorts where Olympians from around the world train at nearby.
Its also close proximity to most of the country's national parks.
And I wouldn't be scared off by the religion in Utah, Mormons make up a minority of SLC and an even smaller minority of the University, since Mormons generally prefer to go to BYU which offers cheap tuition despite being private
I did a semester at WUSTL before dropping out. It's pretty much the safety school for all us Midwest nerds. Good school, but easy to get into because it's such a shit hole that no one wants to live there. It might be worth it for a degree, but don't just go there for an exchange semester.
On the plus side, there's some unintentional comedy from the school safety orientation. They have to basically warn all newcoming students to not go wandering into the nearby black neighborhoods, but they can't just say that directly.
Former truckergay here. St. Louis and East St. Louis are cities that deserve to be nuked, but you probably couldn’t tell the difference afterwards
If you go to USA, choose LSU OP
Its your best option
Thanks 4 all the advice anons. I'll look into all of it.
>Washington University
eh it's surrounded by shithole. don't go to east St Louis under any circumstance. it's a good school but you really should have a car so you can do fun stuff out in the forests of the state
I enjoy St. Louis when I visit family there. WashU was basically a coin flip choice for me that landed on the other side, was very close to deciding on going there.