Beccy on Tour - My Semester Abroad in Raleigh, NC, USA

Rebecca Schaden 0:09
Hello guys, and welcome to my podcast "BeccyOnTour" about my semester abroad in Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States. My name is Beccy and I am your reliable source into the exciting world of American college life. So if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, stay tuned.

Oh, my God, I can't believe it's already been a week since I've left Austria, got on the plane and headed to the United States. Have you ever heard people say a lot can happen in a year? Well, I'm telling you guys, you don't have to wait a year. A lot can happen in a week too. And a lot has happened since I've landed on Raleigh Durham airport. So I don't want to keep you guys waiting. Let's just get into it.

As some of you might have seen on my Instagram channel "BeccyOnTour", where I post daily news about what's happening here at NC State, or my main account beccy_schdn. Monday was the first day of the fall semester. So I got to meet my professors, and also my classmates for the next four months. And I was introduced to the topics we're going to cover. Besides, if you're interested in being kept in the loop about my life at NC State, feel free to follow me on Instagram. And as always, if you have any comments, questions, or podcast recommendations, just drop me a DM. My first class was actually about personal selling. And my professor is a really great guy, and really impressive. He has like a lot of experience in the sales industry. And he worked as a salesperson before, for like countless companies. And so I'm really looking forward to being in this course. But he's also a little bit extra. Like he kept repeating how different his course would be from our usual courses, and that he has been thinking about retiring, but he loves teaching so much. And so he decided to continue nevertheless.

And then he moved on to the syllabus. And apparently, participation and also constant attendance throughout the semester are very important here at NC State. So there are very few, if any, at all courses, were you're allowed to miss class without risking bad grades.

Of course, there are some courses in Austria, where attendance is mandatory. But there are also classes where no one cares how you learn. Or like how often you miss class. The only main thing is that you kind of pass the exam at the end of the year. My personal self professor was also very structured and had the entire class schedule planned out ahead in a very decent manner. Contrary to my French professor, who seems to be more of an like experimenter, which isn't a bad thing, per se, but we asked her about homework and how we had to do it. And she was like, Yeah, you can write as much as you like, let's just see how it goes that just roll with the flow. And yeah, you know, me guys, I'm a bit of a planner. I like it when things are structured. So I had a hard time with that. But yeah, let's just see what happens. And to be totally honest with you guys, and I promised that I would always be honest, in this podcast, I wasn't sure if I was going to find friends or like a group to hang with at first. So I was really anxious about this part of my semester abroad. But good news, I found an amazing group of people. It's actually like a really funny group because we're two Germans, one Austrian, and four Czechs. And one of the Czechs, one girl, actually speaks English and German. So it's really funny because we can speak in almost every language apart from Czech because I don't speak Czech. But yeah, I was really happy to find these people. And they also told me to kind of mention them in the podcast. So that's what I'm doing right now. And we've already made some traveling plans. We want to go to Miami, New York, and also to Outer Banks and the mountains in North Carolina. So you can look forward to a lot of traveling posts and traveling stories on my Instagram. So just stay tuned for that.

Moving on to extracurricular activities and clubs. NC State has already hosted a bunch of different events for new students, so called freshmen and exchange students. Apparently they're like 5600 students joining NC State for fall 2023. So you can probably imagine how many people attended these events. It was packed. And I think I've hardly ever seen so many people in one place. For example, there was like, I think was called rec fest on Sunday, last week, where different sports clubs introduced themselves handed out free T shirts and other souvenirs. And of course, there was lots and lots of food. I mean, it's an American college after all. So far, there was actually food at every event I attended, including their orientation days, where they brought ice cream, pizza and cookies. And about the ice cream. It's a really funny story. It's actually produced by NC State's own cows, like the milk of NC State's own cows, but you know what I mean. And I think that's pretty impressive. And I definitely have to check the cows out one day. And I'll definitely take pictures and post them on Instagram. So you will see them too. So stay tuned. And yeah, I know, pizza cookies and ice cream. It really seems like the prejudice that all Americans eat is fast food kind of hits the mark. But that is not like totally true, because they also had foods and water and even breakfast bars prepared for us at the orientation days. So they really tried to kind of teach us a healthy lifestyle. And it wasn't just like an apple or something. It was like an apple and bananas and the mango and strawberries. So they're really trying to yeah, improve.

And also with the dining halls, it's really great going there. And they have like salad buffets. They have different cuisines, like Asian cuisine, Italian cuisine, and like, of course, American food, typical American food. So I mean, the strawberries still tastes a little artificial. But all in all, it's like a really good thing. And I was really surprised about the food quality here in the States. Something else that took me by surprise is how fit most people at NC State really are. There's like a huge gym called Carmichael gym on campus, and it is very frequently visited. Also, by me, of course, I think if you've seen my Instagram stories, you know that I spent most of my free time there so far. And it makes sense. Like they really have everything you could ever wish for and more like equipment for weight training, at least 30 treadmills two huge pools, and indoor track, a climbing center, and a lot more outdoor activities. And the best thing about it, it is for free for exchange students. And going by how many people go to the gym and are part of sports clubs. It does make sense that fitness is a vital part of the American college lifestyle. I mean, if you saw that gym, you would also want to go there. So yeah, it really makes sense.

I was also stunned to see how huge campus really is. So far, most of my courses and other activities took place on northern campus. But there's another part called Centennial Campus, which we visited on Saturday because a friend of mine has most of his courses there. And we kind of had to take the bus to get there because it would have taken us over an hour to walk there. So in general, I feel like everything here is so grand and so big, especially compared to what I'm used to from my home university, and my home country like in general. And surprisingly many things are for free like the buses, the gym, all the clubs, the library. But I guess when you pay about like 9000 bucks school tuition that is to be expected.

Something else I found pretty shocking, though was the fact that they differentiate between in state and out of state residents. Out-of-State Residents, so people who are not based in North Carolina, they pay three times more for tuition than North Carolina based students, which I think is pretty shocking, because I was expecting there to be a difference regarding international and US based students, but I didn't think that tuition would differ depending on which state you come from. I guess that also explains why a lot of students work part time or even full time parallel to their studies. Like my roommate for example. Contrary to my expectations, though, we exchange students are also allowed to work on campus or even engage in a so called academic training during the winter break. Academic trainings are kind of similar to internships at American companies. And I'm actually thinking about applying for an academic training. So what do you think guys, want to know more about what it's like working in a big American company? If you do, I might be your girl, guys.

But for now, I think I'll stick to college life. Speaking off, I think I might join the NC State owned student paper and a radio station reporting about life on campus events, and so on. On Wednesday, when this podcast goes online, I'll actually meet with the editor of the technician and the state's official newspaper. And I'm really, really excited about getting involved. And as always, I'll tell you guys everything about the meeting in the next podcast. And that being said, I'll end this podcast on this note, I could probably go on talking for another half an hour, but I don't want to overstay your attention. So greetings from the other side of the ocean. Take care of yourselves, and I'll talk to you again next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai