To preface this, I’m not planning on doing an official study abroad. I thought about it briefly but came up with a different idea, with the help of my friends.
My plan is to spend the summer after my sophomore year in Dublin to write. I would probably have a day job just to stay busy, but the main purpose would be creative.
Now for the finances:
- I’m currently a freshman, so I have over a year to save
- I entered college with $3000 in a high-interest savings account (1.000% APY) but am now down to $2000 from paying the security deposit on my off-campus residence for next year (my parents are paying rent under the provision I paid the deposit)
- I may be eligible for a $2000 grant through my school for the explicit purpose of writing abroad
So the question is, how much do I still have left to save? I don’t need a spacious apartment or other luxuries, just a small studio where I don’t go to bed hungry.
In order to know how much to save, you need to know what your costs will be. How much does a studio in Dublin cost? Will you be allowed to work in Ireland? International students in the US can’t work much. The students I know are working for spending money. They certainly couldn’t live on what they’re making.
Why are you depending on your friends to plan a summer abroad? Your other threads indicate that your parents are low income so it doesn’t sound like they’ll be contributing. Doesn’t UPenn offer official study abroad programs? Why not do one of them?
Penn doesn’t offer an official study abroad to Dublin for the summer, and I would not be able to go during the school year due to the credit requirements for my major. Furthermore, none of the summers abroad are for the whole summer; the longest is 5 weeks.
Originally I was going to do the 5-week London program, but the more I read about it/discussed it, the less it sounded like something I wanted to do: it was too short and too highly structured. When I say “with the help of my friends”, I don’t mean depending on them to plan it, I mean talking to people who have known me for 4+ years to say that, when I said I want to go to Ireland to write because I feel creatively stifled, preferably some time before grad school, they suggested that I should do it the summer before junior year, halfway through undergrad, and it was one of them who found a grant/scholarship for the thing I already intended to do.
The reason I’m asking this question is because it’s hard to know what my actual costs will be. Even if I know the cost of a studio apartment (which, like all things, varies), there are no good estimates of how much food will cost, or unplanned expenses, medical or otherwise. The best estimation I can get is from people who have done something similar.
First, you need to know whether you’ll be allowed to work. Second, you need to know whether there are short term jobs to be had.
Would you live in Dublin or in DunLaoghaire?
Would you even be eligible to rent something (often, you need a copy signer and landlords often like to meet parents…)