When I had to make the choice of which university I wanted to choose for my next semester, i was kind of confused. I had so many questions and the blogs about previous student’s experiences didn’t really help me.

So why should you study in Greensboro ?

First of all, American campus’ are awesome. It’s so nice to be 100% part of the school spirit. Everyone is wearing the UNCG sweater, there are events all the time. UNCG campus is green and pretty.

Living in the Phillips-Hawkins residence hall (where most of the international students stay) gives you the opportunity to meet new cultures but mostly to have a lot of fun. They organize a night out every Tuesday and Thursday and tell you about all the fraternity parties going on during the weekend.

Greensboro is not a big city (less then 300 000 people), but there are famous places nearby. For example the bus to NY is only $60.

In North Carolina, American people are so friendly, the classes are very easy. I chose to take one theater class to improve my English and I actually had so much fun there. I recommend everyone to do it.

I enjoy traveling so much, because there is around 100 exchange students in UNCG, so you will easily find a group of people who are up to come with you. 

My stay in North Carolina gave me the opportunity to travel around.

I strongly recommend Ashville, an unknown city in North Carolina. We rented a house there in the mountains for cheap and we travelled around more. If you come to study in Greensboro you have to go there.

New Orleans was definitely my favorite city. The night-life is crazy and during the day you can hear jazz music everywhere.

New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas are the most famous ones I visited. And there is a reason for that. The big cities are all crazy and different from what we know in France. The buildings are also massive.

Most of the time you need a car to travel. There is rental company everywhere, but infortunatly you need to be 21 to rent a car. If the person renting is also under 25, you will be charge.

In Los Angeles and in Las vegas, you can skip the car and use the common transport to travel around. The bus  between this two city is only 25$.

Fast food places are the most common types of restaurants in America. The competition is hard, and all of them fight for market share by searching for areas where to improve competitive advantage.

Five Guys, more expensive than the others, justifies it's price by the fact that you can totally personalize your burger. During the queue, they provide you with free peanuts. My favorite part is their strong partnership with Coca-Cola which provides more than 20 different types of taste.

Wendy's went into a niche as superior fast food. They provide premium burgers and salads. 

Cook Out plays on the price, eating there will cost only 4$ and you can also personalize your menu by choosing four different things.

Sonic is open 24/7 and they have an easy drive-in service with many booths to order from so you don't need to wait in the queue.

McDonald's is well known as the fast food giant with a strong brand image despite it's below average food quality.

All fast food places try to create their own atmosphere. For example Burger King is easily identifiable by their crown.

All of them have advertisements everywhere on the road. I am sure sometimes you can see more than 20 of them in 10 minutes.

I notice that in America, people are not sensitive to ecology.

Firstable I was surprised by the fact that when you want to print something in the library, to each paper print, the print machine gives you an other sheet with only the date and the place. For example if you print a 5 pages text you will have 10 sheet. This is, in my point of view, a waste of paper.

American people used cars all the time, it’s the first means of transport. But instead of using little cars which consume less, they all have big cars as pick-up and polute a lot.In fact since the begining of the year in the country, it was used more than 125 billions of gas. There is 264 person who put gas in their car every second in the United states.

As well in WalMart, they give you so many plastic bag when you go shopping. They don’t even try to put as much as they can product in one bag, most of the time the bah is half empty. Did you know that in the US alone on average, 1 million are "consumed" per minute? An average family that uses them at the grocery store takes home about 60 per month.

On internet, WalMart explain that the company reduce plastic bag waste around the world but only give Brazilian numbers, Argentina, China .. Nothing about America. 

After 30 years of constantly increasing, 2012 was the first year that the american rate of obesity stayed stable in almost every state. There are in total 25% of obese people in the population and some studies have showed that it is more frequent in the southern part of the country.

Being overweight and obesity are physical conditions where an abnormal accumulation of body fat can ruin your health. American people should be aware of this fact. 

Here, in North Carolina, I was shocked by the amount of obese people. But I am beginning to realize how hard it is for them to be different.

First of all, in College, most of the american students live on campus where you don’t really have opportunities to cook your own food. They use their "meal plans" to go to the cafeteria or to one of the many fast food places on the campus (such as Bojangles, Pizza Hut etc.). It’s hard to find healthy food on the campus. And even if the cafeteria offers salads, vegetables there are temptations everywhere and I noticed that there is always a bigger queue for the french fries and burgers in comparison to the vegetables.

Also if you make the healthy choice to take a salad, they put so much sauce that it would be the same as to eat a hot dog.

Moreover, the TV advertisements are not promoting a healthy way to eat and live as you can see in France with the campaign of "5 fruits and vegetables everyday".

As you can see in this commercial for Taco Bell, Nate Robinson, a professional basketball player, does the promotion for a fatty taco. As a model for many american kids they will probably follow his steps and choose easily fast food of that kind.