Boston College is an enigma. Any visitor to the campus, located between Chestnut Hill and Newton (cities just outside Boston), would be stunned at how beautiful the campus is, at any time of year. In the autumn, the trees are beautiful shades of rust; in the spring, the fresh rows of flowers make for a lovely walk through the campus, and in the summer, students pitch up hammocks to bask in the (often blistering) heat. It’s roughly the same size as our campus in Lancaster, with roughly the same number of students, but Lancaster unfortunately is no architectural rival to the BC campus. I was certainly taken aback by this campus that looked more like Hogwarts than a real university, and over the course of the year got to know the university for much more  than just its pretty face.

I must admit that when it was confirmed that I was going to be going to Boston College, I had no idea what the university represented or what it was like. However, this year alone, BC has risen to be part of the Top 30 best universities in the States. The Carroll School of Management (CSOM) alone has been rated the third best undergraduate business school in the country, ahead of the likes of Harvard and Wharton. As you can imagine, as a LUMS student myself, I was determined to make the best use of every opportunity that came my way at CSOM.

I must also admit that when I first got to BC and started to learn about the university, I was quite confused and ended up harbouring mixed feelings about the institution. First of all, a fundamental difference between the British university system and the American university system is the idea of having public and private universities. Theoretically, all universities in the UK are public institutions and are funded by the government; this is one of the reasons that the fees are the same, regardless of the university you choose to go to. This is definitely not the case in the States. Whilst public universities do exist, there are also private universities, such as BC, that charge a much more exorbitant amount of money because of the higher quality of education that is offered (I’ll let you Google just how much a full-time, four-year undergraduate degree from BC costs). Whilst, as exchange students, we pay a mere fraction of that fee, it still did not sit well with me that some people would have to pay that amount in full.

It took me a while to come to terms with the concept of a private university, the concept of an endowment, and the concept of alumni fundraising, all of which you will definitely learn about if you decide to study abroad in the USA. You eventually come to the realisation that whilst those fees may seem exorbitant to you, they are relative in comparison to the higher incomes that people in the States make, especially those on the East Coast and in the Boston area.

The American students would all also joke about how all their tuition money was going to making the campus as beautiful as it was, which, whilst not entirely wrong, is definitely not the whole truth. Boston College has a great educational outlook, and you can tell just by analysing the curriculum just how much investment goes into each student. One of the ways they do this is by hiring professors who have had real experience out in their respective fields and who are thus able to share their stories with students; for anyone in the Management School, I probably don’t need to reiterate the value of case studies to back up theoretical knowledge. Well, at BC, your professors are your case studies. Furthermore, regardless of the department you are in, a BC education always has a strong focus on social justice and making a positive change. Service-learning and self-reflection are woven into the curriculum, and therefore serve to make the student a better human being rather than just a better student. Lastly. BC places value on extra-curricular nourishment by inviting a wide variety of speakers onto their campus; this year alone, I was able to attend talks by a former Australian Prime Minister, Obama’s former Secretary of State and renowned philosopher Noam Chomsky. A huge time and financial commitment is required to set up these events and BC definitely deserves credit for that.

As time progressed and I learnt more about where BC funds were going, my feelings about the institution started to soften and I started to see why they ran the university the way they chose to run it. Boston College really wants their graduates to shine, and they invest in their students. It’s not only obvious in their many signature mottos (‘Ever to Excel’, ‘Men and Women for Others’, and ‘Go Set The World Aflame’ are just a few to name), but it was also obvious in the graduation ceremony that I attended in my final week at BC.

As exchange students, we are only at our host universities for a semester or a year, and technically don’t even have time to completely come to terms about how we feel about the place until we leave and reflect on our experiences. What this experience and my new-found appreciation for BC have taught me, however, is that positivity and optimism are very important when approaching such situations, whether that is whilst studying abroad or in life. Try not to make quick judgements about your host institution, even if it is very different to Lancaster, nor about the people there. At the end of the day, being in a place that is different to your home university is the entire point of studying abroad, right?