Partner Universities

Year of foundation: 1855
Study period: Early August-Mid December
Approx. number of students: 9,800

The City

San Francisco is the leading financial and cultural center of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco has approx. 800,000 inhabitants and thus the fourth most populous city in California.
San Francisco (Spanish for "Saint Francis") was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for St. Francis of Assisi a few miles away. The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time.
After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is one of the top tourist destinations in the world, and is renowned for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, the former prison on Alcatraz Island, and its Chinatown district. It is also a primary banking and finance center.

The University

The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Jesuit Catholic university located in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, USF was established as the first university in San Francisco. It is the second oldest institution for higher learning in California, the tenth-oldest university of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, and the eighth largest Jesuit university in the United States.

The school's main campus is located on a 50-acre (20 ha) setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. Its nickname is "The Hilltop" as the campus is located at the peak of one of San Francisco's major hills. Its close historical ties with the City and County of San Francisco are reflected in the University's motto, Pro Urbe et Universitate (For the City and University). USF's Jesuit-Roman Catholic identity is rooted in the symbolic vision of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order.

http://www.usfca.edu/

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