For those of you out there who are considering Study Abroad, but don't think you can afford it, I promise, if you start looking around you'll be surprised who all wants to help you.
Normally I am the type of person to look at every detail of a trip/experience/whatever, and then worry about every single one until I am so stressed out I can barely sleep. But worrying about gathering money for this trip hasn't really crossed my mind at all. I say "gathering" because that is how it feels. I seem to have found support in several different places, for which I am extremely grateful.
Now, don't think that because I wasn't stressing out about where my funds would come from that I wasn't doing anything. All of the money from my summer jobs for the past couple of years has been going in a savings account (kept separate from the checking account I regularly use) with the idea that it would all be for the study abroad trip that I got to take at some point. Being in college, there are other expenses that come up, books being a primary one, so occasionally I had to dip into my travel fund to cover miscellaneous expenses as well. Even with having to sometimes use this fund for school, I ended up being able to build up about $2500. Money from the part-time job I picked up last semester also went in this fund.
The program itself costs $4550, along with a plane ticket (that ended up being $2089.10) and other costs such as new luggage (mine didn't meet the size requirements for flight, since I've never flown before) as well as covering the excursion trips (to Barcelona and Granada), class supplies, and other every-day expenses like transportation and pocket money.
Obviously my $2500 wasn't going to cut it. So I applied for Study Abroad scholarships through NCSU. Being my impatient self, I was beginning to think that I hadn't received any help, until I checked my Study Abroad account one day and saw that I had received $2000 in scholarships! It came in the form of two separate scholarships, one for maintaining a blog (which I was planning to do any way), and another generous scholarship (the L. I. Felner) of $1000.
Again, for those of you out there who are considering Study Abroad, but don't think you can afford it, I promise, if you start looking around you'll be surprised who all wants to help you.
Along with scholarship money, I was given a generous gift of $2000 from my grandmother. While I know that not every has a family who can help them out in this way, I am grateful that mine did, and didn't want to leave them out.
That puts my funds at about $6500. Which is almost enough to cover the cost of the program and the ticket. However, knowing that there would be more miscellaneous costs, I kept looking. One of the first places I went was the Financial Aid office at NCSU (separate from the Study Abroad offices). My advisor informed me that because I turned down some of my loans for the spring semester, I could take them now, and put them towards use with my trip. Which I then did. Bringing my total up to about $8800. Which is more than enough to cover everything for the trip (as long as I don't go crazy).
I know that I'm throwing out these numbers like they're estimates, but the total is pretty close. I am currently in the process of planning my budget for the trip, so afterwards I will write a post about the details of my spending and paying for the trip.
I hope this was helpful/encouraging for you all reading. I leave in less than a month! so I'll be posting about packing sometime before I go.
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