If you’re not enrolling full-time at a university for the entire
degree course, then the most usual way to study there is on some sort
of exchange program. Most universities would be unlikely to
knowingly take you on for only 1-2 years, and even if they did,
trying to transfer your work and credit back to Denmark could be
problematic.
You would normally study abroad in your second or third year of
university. It would be relatively unusual to study abroad for your
first year, and probably wouldn’t do you all that much good
academically, anyway. Especially if you’re going to a school like
Berkley, you’ll get a lot more out of it academically in your third
year than in your first. This is a broad, and perhaps slightly cruel
generalisation, but if you’re not in a “smart” school like Berkley,
the first-year courses may annoy the hell out of you - the US high
school system doesn’t quite compare to most European ones.
The first thing I would do would be to see if your university in
Denmark has any exchange programs operating with universities
abroad. Since you’ve done well enough to pick the university you
want in Denmark, look into what exchange programs they have when
you’re choosing. If where you end up doesn’t have an exchange
program (or if they’re to universities you’re not interested in), you
can usually still arrange your own exchange with a little bit of leg-
work and communication. Application dates will vary, but they can be
as early as November or December, so if you want to go on exchange in
your second year, you’re in for a very busy first term at university.
The next thing to worry about is funding. Someone will pay an arm
and a leg for you to study abroad, so you’ll have to make sure it’s
not you. Once again, your own university in Denmark will have the
best information for you regarding sources of funding from Denmark
(but don’t expect them to have all the information). If you want
to go to a particular school in the US, contact their international
students’ office (they will all have something that fits that
description). It may even be worth contacting the relevant
departments for information.
I’m not familiar with Denmark in particular, but if the system works
anything like Sweden and Norway, you might consider waiting until
you’re almost finished in Denmark and going to the US to study for
part of a Master’s degree (the ‘typical’ degree you finish with in
Sweden and Norway is more similar to an American Master’s than
Bachelor’s degree). The minus of this is that it’s further in the
future, but the plus side is that it will be easier to find funding,
you’ll be more likely to find a place you like to study, and you’ll
be more likely to be studying something really interesting (rather
than just taking first-year programming classes). And by then you’ll
be of legal drinking age in the US as well.
Finally, I’ll let my own nationalism slip through, and suggest that
you think about Canada as well as the US. The University of Toronto
is a good school for CS and math, and is a great city. Simon Frasier
University near Vancouver is smaller, but has a good reputation as
well, and both Vancouver and Toronto are fantastic cities to live
in. Canadian universities also generally cheaper than the US, even
when paying international tuition rates.
Best of luck,
matthew smillie.
