Florida State University has its roots in the development of a state higher education system in the nineteenth century, and by 1897, it was Florida’s first liberal arts institution. By the outbreak of the Second World War, it had a fully-fledged sports culture and numerous student associations.

In the 1950s the university added business, journalism and nursing departments, and after the turn of the millennium it built a new college of medicine. It now also has study abroad centres in London, Florence, Valencia and Panama.

Florida State boasts hundreds of student organisations, 25 locations across campus to eat, and even a “renegade runner” on call to deliver snacks to students too busy studying.

The university also has one of only two collegiate circuses in the United States, the FSU Flying High Circus, which dates back to 1947. Student performers sew their own costumes, rig up light and sound for performances, and erect a big top tent on campus.

The university’s vision is to be “one of the world's premier institutions of higher education, devoted to transforming the lives of our students, shaping the future of our state and society, and offering programs of national and international distinction in a climate of inquiry, engagement, collegiality, diversity, and achievement.”