University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

If you have an American bank account, never ever use the overdraft! The banks charge enormous amounts for it, even if it's just a day!

The UIUC offers exchange students the possibility to choose one of their housing facilities, i.e. dorms. I lived in Sherman Hall - a grad hall - which I can highly recommend. In comparision to many undergrad halls, you can be really quiet in your room and the others are more mature than nasty (American) 18-year old freshmen. The location of all dorms is excellent, on campus of course - it took me only 5 minutes to most of my classes. However, dorms are definitely more costly than most appartments, but for one exchange semester it should be worth it!

there is not one helpful advice. try to travel as much as possible because you may not have the possibility to do so any time soon at such a low price. just go there and have fun!!

good courses, huge library, good campus life. avoiding to value the cultural differences helps a lot. and there are quiet some, so be prepared (books (Studienhalber in den USA; Thomas) or trainings). take your time before the semester to get some orientation here (1 week).

There are a lot of opportunities to travel. Best offers can be found under www.hotwire.com, www.priceline.com and www.travelocity.com. Chicago is a wonderful city where you can do a lot of shopping and visit beautiful sights.

Not really. I spent the amount of money that I thought I was going to spent before going to the US