A letter arrived today (I'M GOING TO AMERICA!!)

[Vongore]

So, i don't want to make another tl;dr post so i'll make things simple

Today, my test results arrived and to my surprise, my english test came with another letter that said my college was really impressed with my english level. So, due to this, i won an award which allows me to go to America (this includes EEUU and Canada) as an exchange student on any school i wanted (obviously after being admited there after sending my grades and school papers)

So.. i need a favour to ask you, i really don't know a thing about schools over there... i don't know which ones are the better and the ones that will really help me. Also, i would want to ask you for the 3 crappiest ones. I know it's hard to talk about a whole institution being bad, but we all know there are a few black sheeps around there

Right now i'm studying Computer Engineering (I don't know the name of my career in english, i'm ashamed) if that helps..

Soo.. well, that's it. I hope i end near some of you  :-*

PD: I know it's stupid, but i'm so excited right now i might have made a few grammar mistakes on that text. I'm sorry

[KarthXLR]

Come to ASU south. We can hang out. 

[zaneyard]

congrats man!!!!
i dont know much about colleges tho unfortunately
currently i am in a technical college called Lakeshore Technical College in cleveland WI
nothing special really
gl!

[Trace]

Um come to California, even versus is gonna go to school here  ;D
Plus I think we all know you would rather hang out me than Karth

[Neonie]

Avoid Texas.. or any Southern States really. Don't ask why just do it.

[KarthXLR]

Avoid Texas.. or any Southern States really. Don't ask why just do it.

EFF U

[zaneyard]

Um come to California, even versus is gonna go to school here  ;D
Plus I think we all know you would rather hang out me than Karth

id hang out with you trace
im actually thinking of moving to cali when i finish college

[Whendilin]

The Chicago land area in Illinois has some pretty good Computer Engineering schools. I've had to start looking into Video Game Design/3D Animation over here and I have had a tough time deciding which school would be best for me. Enough about me though...Lots o ppl live around here anywho SO COME AND VISIT USSSS!!!

[cbre88x]

Avoid Texas.. or any Southern States really. Don't ask why just do it.

here we go again. prejudice against the south.

computer engineering=computer science? studying programming and software development ect ect? A lot of schools in the south and the west have great computer science programs. Just look around and if you have questions about a certain school we could probably answer them.

also, congrats man.

[zaneyard]

[quote author=Neonie link=topic=3206.msg94479#msg94479 date=1246604939]
Avoid Texas.. or any Southern States really. Don't ask why just do it.

here we go again. prejudice against the south.

computer engineering=computer science? studying programming and software development ect ect? A lot of schools in the south and the west have great computer science programs. Just look around and if you have questions about a certain school we could probably answer them.

also, congrats man.
[/quote]
thats kinda what i was guessing
even though im thinking about going to a university for the same sort of thing, i really have no clue about schools

[Valentine Wiggin]

Avoid Texas.. or any Southern States really. Don't ask why just do it.

WHY DO U HATE MY ACCENT NEONERS

[Ianki]

to be truthful, most schools in america are very similar unless you know exactly what you want to get out of your [semester/year].

As funny as it sounds, the bigger the university the better it might be for you, since there will be more of chance that you have other chileans to hang out with.  Even if you want to learn english, you'll want some cultural touch stones to be comfortable with.  Americans will always be there at any school, but chileans, funny enough, will only be at select schools.

[copulatingduck]

There's computer engineering and there's computer science.

Computer science = coding

computer engineering = coding + electrical engineering

Does the award cover all costs for the education or will tuition be a factor in picking a school? What's most important to you in picking a college?

Do you want the best instructors in the country?
Do you want the school with the best reputation?
Do you want a school with a diverse curriculum?
Do you want the school to have a good reputation in a few choice programs [music for example]?
Do you want to live in/sightsee in a major metropolis while you're in america?
Do you want an opportunity to do work-study or interships?
Do you want a large school with lots of student clubs, or a smaller school where everybody knows your name?
Do you participate in any extracurricular activities that are important to you?
Do you care what the male:female ratio is?

There's a lot of shit to picking a school, if you want help try to specify what exactly you want from your school. Some people want to get a degree but have fun doing it (state universities). Some people want the very best education (ivy leagues). And then there's a million other things that could affect your choice (the music programs at most tech schools are pretty terrible, for example).

edit: and yea, what Ianki said definitely helps. Having people that are easy to talk to and relate to makes the transition MUCH easier. I don't know how many schools do it, but I know here at MIT we have some cultural houses (basically many small dormitories reserved for africans/russians/french/hispanics/etc respectively), so you might try looking for something like that at other schools as well.

[Mr. Face]

Go to MSU, if you do you can get drunk on random days and walk around outside my house trying to steal my pinapple (if you saw my house youd get it)

[Dave]

suprisingly i know quite a lot of people in europe/east europe that are on exchange programs to the USA where they do two years at hom two years at USA blah blah, the majority of them seem to go to this 'fredonia NY' or somethinmg guess thats a pretty good place, or at least open to different cultures, they all seem to enjoy it there anyway.

[Tragic Hero]

You might want to find a school or a University that has a decent population of Chilean or South American students.  I know your English is very good but just in case you end up being surrounded by a bunch of Douche bag Americans you will have a group of people to relate to.

Congratulations btw

[rumsfald]

Everything that Duck, Ianki, and Tragic said. Most, if not all, of the top-tier Universities have a strong focus on and support for International students. U Penn, for example, is crawling with folks from Latin America, South America and East Asia.

If I were traveling abroad, I would want to go to a medium-large University in a medium-large city to have access to enough foreign culture to broaden my understanding but also have enough ex-pats around so I could still talk in my native tongue and eat food from home.  You don't want to be going to a small town in the middle of Oklahoma.

[Surf314]

OK I'm going to try to be as helpful as possible.  If you want to come to Florida the school to come to is UF.  This is because FSU really doesn't get much respect (sorry any FSUers but it's like if you took our party reputation without any academic reputation), and UM is pretty good but it is a private school and is quite expensive.

Now about UF.  We actually have a pretty good computer science department.  I have two friends that did well there and one works for GE and one is a team leader for Exxon's data centers.  The one who works for Exxon is doing especially well as his recruiters worked out a deal with him where he interned there his last 2 years during summers and got those years added to his time worked for raise calculations.  I don't know the rankings but I do know companies take it seriously in the recruiting department.

Outside of that we have a pretty respectable journalism, law, business and medical school.  Our medical and business schools are especially good for the southwest.  If you get sick anywhere in the southwest and it is bad you go to Shands, and that is the hospital that's partnered with UF.

Now the bad: we have a party reputation and a famous football team.  Combine those and they tend to overshadow our academics no matter how much they improve, and our newish president is very focused on improving our academics (and is a complete money whore to do it - our main street through campus got renamed after some huge donor).  Also as a town Gainesville mostly revolves around the university.  This may or may not be a good thing for you.  It generally means summer its pretty empty and you will always know when a football game is because no matter where you are in town someone will be cheering very loudly possibly late into the night.  There are a lot of parties, clubs, places to eat and get drunk, and so on.  Our reputation isn't for nothing.  So you will have to be focused to keep up your GPA.

That's my two cents.  If you are looking at Florida the obvious choice is UF.  Maybe you can get some other people to break down their schools for you.  Hope this helps as far as Florida now you got 49 more states to look at.

Edit: to follow up on the spanish culture thing - we have a huge spanish population here (it is Florida).  AFAIK there are several spanish clubs.  It is also predominately south american and cuban (my good friend was Venezuelan his gf at the time was from Peru, my wife I met there is Chilean, the place I like to eat is Argentinian, etc.)

[CaffeinePowered]

For Computer Engineering (Look to Duck's Post for the difference between CompSci and CompE)


1) MIT
2) UIUC Engineering
3) UC Berkley


Those are the top three schools _in the world_ for engineering, the only one I'd be able to tell you about in depth is UIUC since I went there and did spend a good deal of time on the engineering campus getting a minor in CompSci

[Badgerman of DOOM]

suprisingly i know quite a lot of people in europe/east europe that are on exchange programs to the USA where they do two years at hom two years at USA blah blah, the majority of them seem to go to this 'fredonia NY' or somethinmg guess thats a pretty good place, or at least open to different cultures, they all seem to enjoy it there anyway.

The only problem is that it's gonna be bloody freezing up in Upstate NY.