Rebecca's Exchange to University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | USA
In Semester 1 of 2015 I went on exchange to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was a wonderful and amazing experience. I fell in love with the campus and the town.
Chapel Hill is the epitome of a college town. Tiny and sleepy until the students arrive and catering almost entirely to students. That is what I loved about Chapel Hill – its atmosphere is entirely different. Perth is a city and it’ll never have the atmosphere that Chapel Hill had – a strange paradoxical quiet but always busy.
Franklin St which runs past the top of campus is the main street and basically the only commercial street. Despite there being only one street though, Franklin Street contains pretty much anything you could possibly need. If you don’t want to trek it to Harris Teeter in the next suburb over, CVS or Walgreens could sell you pretty much anything. Several clothing shops made sure that if you urgently need something or even just wanted a break or a wander, without going to the mall you can spend a good hour browsing. However by far the best thing and most important thing Franklin Street offers is the food. UNC has a longstanding tradition around food on Franklin St; the Carolina Coffee Shop has been serving coffee to UNC students for over a 100 years. ‘YoPo’ or the Yoghurt Pump which serves frozen yoghurt of all flavours constantly has a line out the door even in winter. No brunch after pulling an all-nighter is complete without a breakfast at the Waffle House, which serves all day waffles. If you can’t wait even until morning for snacks Insomnia Cookies delivers until 3 am.
This atmosphere is also accompanied by a sense of history that Murdoch has not yet developed. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill possesses a special place in American history as it is the country’s first public university, opening in 1795. The age of the university is present in everything from the design of the buildings (my dorm building was built in 1920 renovated in 2013 and had high ceilings with beautiful fresco decorations) to the purpose of the buildings (the Science Museum on campus was used to train astronauts for the Apollo Space Missions in astronomy). Even social issues on campus demonstrate the rich history and age of the college. While I was on exchange there was a campaign to rename Saunders hall as while William Saunders contributed immensely to North Carolina as Secretary of State for the State he was also a leader of the Klu Klux Klan. Ultimately the Board decided that the name was inappropriate and changed it to ‘Carolina Hall’.
This history spreads throughout the social clubs as well with a few celebrating their 50th anniversary while I was there. The vast array of clubs as well as events at Chapel Hill was truly amazing and contributed to the atmosphere of always busy. While at UNC I saw the pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovic play pieces from the celebrated contemporary pianist Pierre Boulez. I also got to see two acapella groups perform, Harmonyx and the Clef Hangers in their spring concerts (these were only two of the six groups on campus). Dorm parties are common towards the end of the year with Connor community holding their annual ‘Connorstock’ music festival. Cobb community also held a ‘Cobbwarts’ party with ‘potion’ mocktails. There were so many experiences UNC had to offer and there was no possible way to do them all but the ones I did do I’m so glad I had the opportunity.
More than the experiences – what really made my exchange super special was the people. I made a lovely group of friends among the other exchange students, including girls from New Zealand and one from the Netherlands. We had a lot of fun exploring Chapel Hill and the Raleigh-Durham, as well as enjoying a weekend trip to Washington DC on the Martin Luther King Jr. long weekend. I also made excellent friends at the University from North Carolina and around the States. These people have truly enriched my life, teaching me things I never knew and giving me new experiences. I distinctly remember sitting in the dining hall one evening live tracking a tornado over my friend’s home in Atlanta – thankfully the tornado never landed but he told me so many things regarding tornados that I never knew. It’s the little things like that that I will always remember.
Arriving back in Australia from exchange you feel happy to see your friends and family again but also a sense of melancholy. You miss the places where you have been, what you’ve seen, who you’ve met. Since arriving back I’ve missed various things about UNC. The dining hall was full of life and was only ever quiet on a Sunday morning – I miss just being able to go there, grab a tea and a snack and hang out with friends. Having dinner on a Friday or Saturday with friends on Franklin St is only one of the multiple things I miss. I miss my friends that I made there; the debates that would invariably occur in the dining hall. Even the conversations you would have with random people in your dorm during an all-nighter or while waiting for your washing to finish. Somehow even though I was homesick while at UNC, I now feel homesick for UNC and this has made me realize something.
Chapel Hill, the people and the experiences will always be a part of me.
I am a Tar Heel now.
- Rebecca studied abroad at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the USA
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