If you want to get beyond Austin (which is nice) you'll need cash or car. You can pay for direct flights to LA, Chicago, NYC and Miami. You can drive to New Orleans, AZ/Grand Canyon, and farther to Las Vegas or the Mark Twain areas according to your interests. The economics are going to be weird so I suggest you make as many friends as possible.

If you want to backpack in the /trv/ manner as an American would on Eurorail you can do that airplanes. However, if you want to experience the AMERICA and our national legend, you'll need a car. This is going to be terribly inconvenient and expensive. For the miles you'd drive renting would not be economical. You'd want something reliable so buying would tie up too much capital - you'd have to lease. At that point you'll be looking for car insurance with a non-US license so premiums are 2-3x. You're going to have to get a spreadsheet and plan some speculative trips and decide if driving school and a US license make sense. If you can fill a car with American and just pay gas / drive on highways with few police then you'll be much better off.

Also, for you, frats are a means to an end. If you aren't autistic, speak RP, and are heterosexual befriending a frat will open doors for you. I don't really understand the mechanics of frats. Their dominance correlates with university size and popularity of the school's sports teams. It's an artifact of the retarded (and largely non-public) funding of (even public) US universities. For you Eurofags keep in mind that our school own minor league sports franchises (?!?!) and regularly have budget catastrophes that increase tuition by 25% over ~3 years (?!?). But if you aren't a douche and can bring 2 females with you to any given party (due to accent) then I'm sure somebody will befriend you.

>>1063794
i am a student, i don't even have a car back home, getting a car is totally infeasible, i guess i'll just have to make friends with someone with a car

having said that, my accomodation has free food, so i might have a shitload of extra cash

>>1063796
How big are your balls and what is the degree impact of the classes you'd be taking in the US? Our professors typically seek to minimize student interaction so if you pick your classes properly you can spend several weeks on Greyhound or similar buses.

>>1063799
it doesn't count towards my degree, its an extra year, as long as i scrape a pass i get to put "with a year abroad at UT" after my degree title, but that'll help me get a good masters so i do kinda wanna pass

i should have a bunch of free time at the end of the year though, if i can find a way to ship all of my stuff that i can't carry home i could bum around america for a couple of months, depending on how much cash i have left over

>>1063804
The the proper way to optimize is to go professor shopping. You may be able to live dangerously get a pass while freeing up 4-5 weeks a semester. Our athletes are fake students and pass so you can play a similar trick. You want giant classes with 100+ people in the main lecture with the professor and once-per-week sessions with a PhD student where ideas are emphasized and quizzes / problem sets are collected. UT is good but will still have some retarded athletes so don't be afraid to retake your A-levels with them. Minimize class time and focus on personal maturation in a new culture.

Generally, Chinese and Indian PhDs are afraid of administration but the American students don't give a shit if you are forthcoming / respect their time. You can ask to skip the weekly sessions, submit materials early, or otherwise conduct business remotely. Adjuncts or non-professor Lecturers that dominate 100 and 200 level courses will often have an extremely lenient class structure since they are paid a flat rate and have no incentive be on campus beyond class hours. They give out high marks so they get high feedback scores and get their short term contracts renewed. Picking the proper ones could theoretically limit your classroom time to 3 exams only.

Enroll in +1/3 more courses than you will take and ask the bluntest possible questions the first day so that you get the experience you want. There is no downside (in this instance) to picking garbage - but there is a downside to accidentally picking a good professor and then skipping all of their cool, rigorous lectures.

My hunch is that you'd want "reflective" rather than "productive" courses. Film, comparative literature, quantitative courses outside of the MATH department and economics/business would be good. These would have terse, finite assignments with closed form exams. You might even learn about America. If not, watch the Ken Burns documentaries on Netflix and have lots of sex.

>>1063811
unfortunately its a condition of the year abroad that at least half of my courses have to be in my degree, which in this case is neuroscience, so i'm probably stuck actually doing a lot of work

however, judging by the gpa converter, your exams are a lot easier, for instance i got 68% last year and apparently that converts to a 3.7 gpa, which i think is good


i figure the rest of the courses should be something with a lot of group work so i get to meet people, but the only course i know does that is computer science, and from what i can tell american uni socially is like being back at school, so it actually matters if i'm only hanging out with nerds.

I don't really know how universities work in Europe but a huge part of social life in an American university like UT revolves around sports and partying. Be social EARLY with the people in your classes and your apartment/dorm. You're British, Americans fucking love your voice and you can honestly probably get into a social group by having a cool backstory. Make friends and be proactive about asking them to hang out. At a university with a lot of fraternity members, the party scene revolves around the fraternity system a lot, so making friends in frats can get you into really cool parties that most guys can't go to.

Go to every home football game. UT's football program is having a down couple of years but they're historically one of the richest and best college football schools in America. UT football is an incredible experience and you're doing yourself a disservice by not going to every single game.

By the way I'll be in England and Scotland for about 2 weeks this summer. Any lesser known but worthwhile destinations that I should check out?

>>1063835
seriously consider wales, cardiff is beautiful, the countryside is even moreso, and the people are really friendly and have an accent that will seriously fuck with you.

the best cities in my opinion are edinburgh, cardiff, manchester and brighton

london is impressively big and has a lot of interesting stuff, but its really not a very pleasant place to be