Application process

MicroEDU had sent around a list of all the other German exchange students who also go to the SDSU and someone then set up a Facebook group through which the first exchange took place. In the group, tips for car rentals, hotels / hostels, parties, etc. were given and, not really surprising, there were almost only Germans in the hostel where I spent my first few days. It is up to you whether this is to be assessed positively or negatively; However, it tended to steer me because I didn’t expect to meet so many Germans in my semester abroad. I stayed at Lucky D’s downtown. The hostel was definitely worth a recommendation, as it was cheap and still quite cozy. Breakfast was included and a variety of activities were always offered in the evening. Downtown is also one of the best places to party and the hostel is pretty central so you could walk anywhere. Since I didn’t have a car for the first few days and wanted to look for a room in Pacific Beach (PB), the drive there and back was a bit stressful, but manageable. In general, the search for a room was very tedious, because very! There were a lot of exchange students and they were all looking for a room at the same time. In the end, I was lucky and found a room in an apartment complex right on the beach in PB, where I lived with two Italians who had lived in PB for a long time. Although I would have preferred to live with Yanks, the location was perfect and in general it would have been difficult to find such a location plus the right roommates. Note: SDSU stands for San Diego State University according to abbreviationfinder.

The university SDSU

The university itself is super beautiful and with the San Diego sunshine and the palm trees it is more of a vacation than learning. When it was time to ‘choose’ the courses, I was quite disappointed, as the exchange students were the last to be given the ‘choice’ and could therefore only choose the courses in which there were still places available. The places in the popular courses were of course already taken by the SDSU students. My favorite subject was intercultural communication with Prof. Lee. Super interesting and Prof. Lee was awesome. Although the professor from my Business Plan Development Class was not that good, the course was interesting, as I mostly worked practically through a lot of group work. International entrepreneurship with Prof. Musteen was also pretty good and we were able to apply all the theories in practice. The only class that I would definitely rate negatively is Principles of Public Relations, because on the one hand I found the professor too arrogant and on the other hand the content of the course was not designed appropriately. The tuition fees only include 12 units, which usually corresponds to 4 courses. I would have liked to have taken more courses, as there are really many offers that are not available at my university in Germany, but I didn’t want to pay the extra fee. If you are not dependent on the courses, I would recommend taking sports courses, which are part of the units and you can choose between sports such as surfing, wakeboarding, stand-up paddle,. . . Really cool. The Bib is rather small compared to Germany, but cozy. The lunch options are very limited and there are a lot of fast food offers – definitely in need of improvement. Even at university, no matter where you went or what class you had, you always heard German and met a lot of Germans overall. I had imagined differently and controlled myself a little.

Pacific Beach

PB is great. Since I lived right on the beach, I bought a surboard and bike. Party in PB is mainly going on at Garnet St. , but it was also the case here that you mostly met international, especially German, students. The good thing was that you could do everything by bike – shopping, partying, to the beach (of course you can also walk, everything is super central). Party was generally ok. The drinks were always very cheap, you often had to queue for between 30 and 90 minutes to get into the club and the shops themselves were also rather chilled-out and rustic. Downtown definitely has better alternatives. The beach is really great and the weather allowed you to sunbathe almost every day.

Conclusion:

The semester was different than expected, but nice. The negative thing for me was that there were too many Germans in San Diego and that I spoke more German than English. The weather, the location and the courses, which I would not have been able to choose in Germany, were positive. In general, the semester was more of a vacation than anything else. It’s nice, but I would have expected a little more. So if you want to do a ‘vacation semester’ and you don’t mind that a lot of German is there, then I would recommend the SDSU to others. However, if you would like to experience something more academically demanding and possibly a place where you get to know more locals, the SDSU is not the right one. As I said, although I expected the latter, the semester was still very nice and I learned a lot.