Living Accommodations

Living in a dorm is a big part of the United States college experience. Students often share a dorm with at least one roommate of their gender. It’s very common for freshman to reside in dorms.

In Europe, living in a dorm is not really a thing. Instead, many students live in apartments off-campus. However, in the UK, there are residence halls, but it depends on the school.

Extracurricular Activities

In college in the United States, there are so many school-affiliated things you can do outside the classroom. You can join clubs, participate in sports (which I’ll explain below), volunteer, etc. You can also participate in sororities.

In the United Kingdom, there are also clubs, which are known as student societies. You might find “student nations” in Sweden and Finland, which are like clubs in the US. But clubs really aren’t a big deal in Europe. When you go to Europe, you will not find any fraternities nor sororities. 

Sports

In American colleges and universities, sports are a big deal, especially football. College football games are gigantic social events at most large universities. Students wear their school colors at games, tailgate all day, and celebrate big wins with parties on campus. When you’re in college, there are many sports you can play, from rowing to softball and volleyball, even intramural Quidditch! College sports means competition and it’s not uncommon to compete against other colleges and universities. Athletic scholarships are given to high-performing student athletes.

However, when you study abroad in Europe, you will see that sports have very little or no presence in colleges and universities. European colleges and universities are seen as places solely for studying. However, in the United Kingdom, there’s British Universities and College Sport and like the United States, there are competitions and clubs. Although soccer is insanely popular in Spain and Italy, there are no college clubs nor competitions at schools in those countries.