Rumors about college sports in the US float across the Atlantic. I knew the NCAA was a big deal, but while here in America most people support, or at least feel some kind of affiliation for, a college football team. I’d never fathomed non-university affiliated people supporting a university sports team. 80,000 people regularly attend games at schools such as Notre Dame, USC and Ohio State — that’s about 79,900 people more than attend weekly rugby games at the University of Edinburgh (my home university)!

You see college sports in the UK are not really a big deal. If you’re going to be a pro-sportsman in the UK, you’re recruited while you’re still in high-school. Professional footballers (soccer players, that is) join up in their early teens and develop within the youth academies of professional clubs. If you actually make it to university, chances are you’ve missed your chance to go pro. In fact, I don’t know of any professional footballer in the UK with a university education.

One of the major reasons for the widespread interest in college sports is the drafting system. It’s so exciting to see a player like Reggie Bush develop from a promising youngster at USC into an NFL star who almost single-handedly dragged New Orleans to the Superbowl. Without any serious youth development programs, professional sports teams rely on high-school and college sports competitions to nurture young American talent and, as such, the funding and support required to successfully run national college sports competitions is available.

Reggie Bush single-handedly dragging the Saints to the Superbowl–or at least trying. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Furthermore, college football offers an unrivalled insight into the best of the future, something we aren’t privileged with in the UK. Wayne Rooney (probably the most gifted English footballer in a generation) scored . his first professional goal at the age of 16, against the then Premiership champions. Imagine a 16-year old Brady Quinn winning MVP for the Eagles as they trashed the Bears - wouldn’t happen right? It’s a whole different ball game (literally).

In the UK, sportsmen are blooded much earlier than in the US. Andy Murray, one of Britain’s brightest young talents, beat , Roger Federer at the tender age of 19. Alistair Cook has already scored 1000 test runs in English cricket and is just 21. Wayne Rooney is one of the hottest prospects in world football, earning millions of pounds a year and competing in top-level, international competitions for club and country; if he were American, chances are he’d be in his Junior year at college.

What’s the preferred system of developing young talent? Blood them young or keep them amateur till graduation? It’s a difficult one to call. What I do know is that I’d be lying if I pretended I hadn’t partially fallen for college football. It certainly makes school a hell of a lot more exciting.

I’m one of those weird-looking kids who amble up and down Locust Walk, not quite sure where they are or what they’re doing, but enjoying it nonetheless. You know, an exchange student. We may look like Americans, save the lack of reversed baseball caps and fraternity clothing. We may act like Americans, watching Lost, eating pizza, drinking till we drop. But during my first semester here, I realized just how different we really are, you and I.

Firstly, you say trash. And garbage. And cart, groceries, trunk, pants, check, sneakers, sketchy and “I’m down”. I say rubbish, trolley, food, boot, trousers, bill, trainers, dodgy and “I’m up for it”. I love the word rubbish, I use it to describe everything that’s, well, rubbish. Most Americans laugh at me when I do in a way I ten to interpret as cute rather than condescending, if only for my own self-esteem.

A favorite trait of mine is the 24 hour lifestyle. Want a bagel at 4am? Go to Fresh Grocer. Fancy some chocolate milk and a hotdog? Wawa’s just across the road. It’s all there, all the time. Fancy feeling like a failure? Just mosey on down to Hunstman anytime after midnight and watch Whartonites at work. They never sleep. Seriously. This girl told me once.

Then there’s the ‘time is money’, “what’s a state pension?”, get-off-your-arse-and-do-some-work notion. The French hate it. They love nothing more than sitting on their arse doing nothing, drinking wine, eating cheese.

But this work ethic is a very American trait. The French have a 35 hour week, the EU tried to force Britain to restrict a working week to a maximum of 48 hours. And so much of Europe, indeed much of the world, looks at America with a mixed sense of awe and disgust.

How do they work so hard? What about their families? Do they ever see their kids? Is it true they all live in forced labour camps? Is Warren Buffet an alien? All good questions, especially the Buffet one. Answers on a postcard please.

I’d always viewed the US as a bigger version of England with a few cowboys and seasonal pumpkins. But I was wrong. The US is a unique country, a vast and uncompromising territory, driven by a 24/7 culture and a belief that hard work always breeds success.

Oh and you speak funny. But it’s not a problem. I’m down with that.

Child porn - check. Student killings - check. Professor currently under arrest for allegedly battering his wife with a long, cylindrical object - check. If you didn’t know Penn before, you do now. Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the Ivy League!

I’m a Brit. I come from a country where the only people with guns are farmers, the GB rifle team and a few amateur shots. Handguns are about as popular as foot-and-mouth disease. So coming to Philadelphia this year has been quite an experience. In 2006, Philadelphia had over Four hundred homicides, more than half the 765 recorded homicides in the whole of England and Wales. Not bad for one city. So I guess I shouldn’t be that shocked by professors (allegedly) killing their wives. But I am.

Last semester, a friend of mine was held up at gunpoint on the corner of 39th and Sansom. A couple of guys approached him, shoved a concealed weapon into his torso, demanded money and then, once he’d complied, calmly walked off into the distance. He was on his way to class. It was 10.30 a.m.

This kind of thing should not be happening. Not here, not anywhere. Certainly not on the campus of an Ivy League school.

Probably the biggest crime-related story on the Edinburgh campus last year was the apparently unprovoked beating of a 22-year old engineering student. No child porn and certainly no in-house murders. Gun control will probably never be properly implemented in the US, mainly due to that scrap of paper known as the constitution, but it’s no surprise that the US has a per capita murder rate almost three times that of the UK. As long as the average US citizen can walk into a store, buy a gun, take it home and keep it under their pillow, homicide in the US is going to remain a problem.

None of us really know whether our Prof is guilty. Only he knows. But guilty or not, four hundred other murders took place in the last 12 months in Philadelphia. That’s four hundred too many.