May 12
How Weather Should Factor Into Your Search for a U.S. University
When people plan a week-long vacation, they spend hours and hours and hours worrying about the weather. What’s the temperature going to be? Is it going to rain? Do I need to bring an umbrella? Sunscreen?
But for some reason, when people are going to go to study at a university, not just for a week, but for four entire years of their life, they often don’t seem to care at all about the weather!
The weather is important. For one thing, there is evidence to suggest that the weather can affect your mood, especially specific aspects of the weather like humidity and sunshine.
But at a more basic level, just ask yourself, what kind of weather do you like? Take a moment to think about that. Then ask yourself, wouldn’t it be nice to study in a place that has that kind of weather?
The United States is such a big country, with so many different climates, that I can almost promise you there’s a university situated in the kind of climate you like. Like tropical weather? Florida or Hawaii are good bets. Enjoy dry climates with lots of sun? The American Southwest would be a good destination. Enjoy winter sports? How about Colorado?
So, when you’re researching a university, make sure you look into the climate. How to do that? It’s remarkably easy. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (try saying that five times fast) has a great page called “United States Climate Page.” There you can click on a state, then on cities and towns in that state. It doesn’t have every town, so you may need to choose a city that’s close by to your university. The available data includes average temperature, yearly precipitation (that’s rain and snow), the percentage of days that are sunny, and so on and so forth.
You can also go to any of the countless weather sites and get a good, detailed look at the weather on a partticular day. Most of these sites will have some kind of historical data as well. For example, Accuweather allows you to look at the average temperature for a city on a month-by-month or day-by-day basis. Weather.com provides good summaries of temperature and precipitation (look for the button that says “Averages“).
The bottom line is that you’re not only going to study at a university, you’re going to live there. And the weather is something that can drastically impact the quality of your life. So spend some time researching the weather at the universities you’re interested in. That way, you won’t forget to pack your sunblock. Or your umbrella.
Posts in this Series
- Conclusion - How to Choose a U.S. University - 02 Jun
- Activities Around a University Campus - 01 Jun
- Check Out U.S. Universities on iTunes U - 26 May
- Extracurricular Activities - 25 May
- Get to Know Your Potential Professors - 21 May
- Don't Forget Your Life! - 20 May
- What Do You Want to See in the U.S.? - 19 May
- How Many International Students go to your Chosen University? - 18 May
- The Problem with University Rankings - 17 May
- Using Facebook to Research Universities - 14 May
- Look at the Surrounding Neighborhoods When Looking at a U.S. University - 13 May
- How Weather Should Factor Into Your Search for a U.S. University (This post)
- Looking for a University in the United States: Cost of Living - 11 May
- Looking for a University in the United States - 10 May
One Response to “How Weather Should Factor Into Your Search for a U.S. University”
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Tags: climate of U.S. universities, International students in the U.S., looking for a university in the U.S., study in the United States, weather at U.S. universities
May 13th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Nate, good point. Many people don’t take this into account when choosing a university. Some of the country’s best universities are in cold climates. If you don’t like snow and long winters, your overall experience at one of these schools will definitely be worse than you would expect.
We recently moved to Washington DC. We love the city, but the extremely humid and muggy summers are a real negative!