<p>My D is interested in studying abroad in Budapest, a program through her school. She was originally considering London but the study abroad advisor told her that the Budapest program costs a lot less. </p>
<p>Has anyone's student studied abroad in Budapest? I've spent a few days there and it was beautiful, but I don't know about living there for 5 months. It seems like London would offer a lot more convenient weekend trips, but for all I know, there are inexpensive airlines that could get her all over the place from Budapest. </p>
<p>I have no advice on studying abroad, but I found Budapest haunting. Seriously. “The city that could have been …” … modeled after Paris, but just destroyed so many times over the years.</p>
<p>DS is heading there to study fall semester and all the feedback I’ve heard from students who have studied there previously is positive. My communications with the U.S.-based company running the program (AIT) have been excellent. </p>
<p>From the research I have been doing (we hope to visit him there briefly this fall) train connections between Budapest and other parts of Europe are efficient and affordable. Planes may be too.</p>
<p>My personal feeling is that Central/Eastern Europe is fascinating and that spending time in and around Budapest via a school-affiliated program will be an incomparable opportunity.</p>
<p>My D is currently studying in Prague, but she’s in Budapest this weekend! She has loved being in central Europe. So far in one semester she’s traveled to Krakow, Poland; Dresden and Munich, Germany; Vienna, Austria; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Budapest, Hungary and lots of places in Czech Republic by train or bus. Plus she had a very inexpensive flight to Rome to visit friends. </p>
<p>I don’t know about the economy in Hungary, but Prague has been very inexpensive (it’s not on the euro). And the language barrier hasn’t been too much trouble. D is taking Czech lessons, but most folks speak some English. We’re in the process of moving to London and fwiw, it’s very expensive!!</p>
<p>My DS did a semester in Budapest last fall. He loved it. We loved it when we stopped in for 3 days. But he got into it much more than we feared since he is pretty shy. He took trips to Ireland and Scotland to visit other college friends on their study abroad campuses. Someone came to see him, too.
His only glitch was that his MAC died while there and he couldn’t get tech support in English. His solution was to buy a cheap used PC (with a german keyboard, but he is completely a touch typist) and wait til he got home to get it fixed. It was wonderful.</p>
<p>I think for many students Budapest is a better choice than London by far.
Food was cheap. People are VERY nice and friendly. He seemed to come out with an OVERALL better experience than our DD who did her study abroad in Paris. </p>
<p>But the advertising that says people speak English is … iffy… Yes, they say Hi Thank You and I do not understand. But they do communicate!</p>
<p>Funny story. We went to the baths (you have to try it) and were looking for the changing area… no English signs or pictographs … we ended up in the MEN ONLY area and it was awkward and no one telling me spoke english.</p>
<p>My son loved his semester in Budapest several years ago. He took a brief Intro to Hungarian before his semester, and he said it helped a bit (numbers) when buying groceries (no English spoken in these small shops). His knowledge of German helped him much more.</p>
<p>Your daughter will have a great vacation – lots of good rail and air connections to Budapest, and she can go further easy to Turkey or Israel etc for some trips rather easily.</p>
<p>study abroad is for the student to explore , it has no bearing on a resume to a future employer . a summer aborad (IMO) gets that done minus losing a semester on your college campus.</p>
<p>Budapest is well-known for science, math, CS. It’s also right on the frontier between Western and Eastern, but was under Communist rule for a long time, so there’s a lot of history to explore. It is indeed much cheaper than London, but the main reason you choose a place is because the program offered there enhances your major. If your child is studying Finance, then London is much better. If your child is majoring in math, Budapest is better. For history, art, etc, both are fine and so the cheaper option may be a better idea. (There are $80 round trip flights on low-cost airlines that specialize in continental, ie European, traffic, so it’s easy to travel everywhere.)</p>
<p>I am assuming that when you interview graduating seniors for job openings, you don’t care about study abroad. But another person might. I might care if a young woman played basketball for Delaware, or studied abroad in Ghana, or grew up on a pig farm…because I have personal connections or interests in these areas and it might make one resume stand out from the stack.</p>
<p>As for losing a semester…what are those AP credits for, anyway?</p>
<p>My DD is in Budapest right now on a study abroad program and having the time of her life! She has traveled most weekends (on a very limited budget, I might add), and after a few jaunts to Western Europe, decided that traveling in Eastern Europe was far more interesting and inexpensive. Yes, the language has been a barrier, but she has some really funny stories to tell because of it. I leave in a few days to visit!</p>