UNCW is located about 10 minutes from Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach. Its location so close to the coast sets it apart from other schools. At the beginning of the school year, the school takes bus loads of students to the beach for fun in the sun! It also allows for more opportunities in the classroom, for instance, in my ecology class we were able to study watersheds and sand dunes because of the schools location. Another unique attribute of this school is that we have a preserved Long Leaf Pine forest with about 150 acres that allowed us to study Pine Forest.