For courses in psychology through the liberal arts to hard science, young Britons are flooding across the pond to American universities. Lucy Hodges seeks out the peaks and pitfalls of student life stateside

Students looking to study for a degree abroad flock to the United States. It is the top destination for adventurous and bright young people from countries as diverse as China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and, yes, Britain. In 2015-16, international student numbers in America reached a record one million and, of these, 5,680 are undergraduates from the United Kingdom, of whom quite a few are choosing to attend Catholic universities or colleges.

“I chose Boston College because I didn’t want to narrow down my options, as you have to in the UK by studying one subject for three years,” says freshman Megan Luff, 18. “I like learning a lot of different things and being able to change my mind about the subject I will major in.”

New figures show that there has been a 31 per cent jump in British undergraduates studying for degrees in the US in the past five years. David Mannion of the Fulbright Commission, which organises student exchanges between the US and UK, says: “The flexibility of a liberal arts curriculum allows students to develop the broad skill sets employers value, while still focusing on a subject they are passionate about in their third and fourth years.”

Megan Luff is coming to the end of her first term at the private Jesuit Boston College and has already switched subjects three times: “When I arrived I wanted to do sociology but after a short while I switched to biology and now I’ve decided to major in environmental studies, but I don’t have to decide until the end of my second year.”