msmemory_archive | (no subject)

(no subject)

I hope the administrations of other fine and expensive institutions in this region also read this article in today's Globe:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/05/12/the_harvard_disadvantage/
I never even considered frivolities like Junior Year Abroad. Not with parents who considered it a big issue when I asked for a new winter jacket during my freshman year.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

*nods*

The rich girls were like a different species.

The Wendy Wellesleys, yeah. I remember listening to one say, in her southern drawl, "I might get a job this summer, or maybe I'll just live off of my daddy's money." My jaw just about hit the floor.

Frivolity? Interesting way to think about it. My kids get winter jackets from Salvation Army, but I don't consider a junior year abroad a frivolity. It's an incredible chunk of education - and, like, many things that are good for kids, costs money that not everyone has - though, if you do it right, it can cost very little.

This.

If there was financial aid available for study abroad, other than at the Fulbright level, it wasn't disclosed to the students. So asking my family for a junior year in France would've been an unthinkable expense.

By the time I got there, there was financial aid for travel abroad if you applied to the right programs. I know the one in Cordoba, Spain was one, because that's what I did, and all my financial aid traveled with me. The college even upped the amount of my grant to cover the money I wouldn't be able to make in work-study while I was there. So for the same price as another year at Wellesley, I got a year in Spain, including airfare for each semester, room and board, books, and a few trips. I believe the Aix en Provence (sp?) program in France was similarly covered by financial aid.

I went to college in this era too, plus with most of the science majors you couldn't go abroad and finish in time. And yet for years I felt I'd failed to do something important by not doing it! Go figure THAT out. I'm better now thanks.

this. at my scholl a year abraod cost the same as a year nto abraod. plus plane tickets but everythign else was covered. and while coats came from thrift stores and furniture came form the curb, education came at whatever price.

Always a huge gulf between the haves and the havenotes, even when both are given the same opportunities. I can recall scrounging for laundry money, opting for the 14 meals a week plan instead of the full 21, skipping textbooks in favor of more note-taking, etc. I lucked out with full time jobs during the non-academic times to keep from having to work on campus my first two years. I opted to live on campus all years because various financial options will pay for that where they won't cover off-campus housing. My dad was driving passenger buses at the time I went to school, and my mom has been on permanent medical disability since I was in high school.

Fortunately, despite a large segment of the school having an air of privilege, there always seems to be a good crowd of geeks there who don't care what you are, but who you are.

When I was in college I don't remember even hearing about study-abroad options. Were it possible I wouldn't have been able to, but I didn't even know I was missing out on it at the time. Maybe I wasn't and it's a newer thing. I sure do hear a lot more about it now than then, including from the non-rich.

Interesting article; thanks for sharing it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only