<p>R6L, I more or less understand your situation. I have a niece in at least a moderately similar situation. What I’m saying is that, if necessary, find a away to add it on to <em>your</em> student loans. The interest rates are low and the differential for money borrowed on top of Praxis is negligible in the total scheme of things. This means you need to be planning for the amount borrowed in advance, of course.</p>
<p>R6L, do you have any relatives you could stay with for the summer in more attractive locales? I know of a Smithie who stayed with her aunt and uncle in NJ while she worked in NYC. How about some close friends helping out? This summer for a week we’re going to put up one of our daughter’s friends while she attends a week-long large animals clinic at Tufts Veterinary before she starts working on a farm.</p>
<p>TD, what in the world are you talking about? Excuse me for being ignorant, but what is Manolos? Do I need to check out Wikipedia? :)</p>
<p>CarolynB, I think Manolos are shoes, and ridiculously expensive ones at that.</p>
<p>Phanatic: bingo! I’ve been inside of houses with closets stocked with them…not <em>my</em> lifestyle. (Carolyn was apparently saying “What!?!?!?” about them in post #15. </p>
<p>You know, that’s an essential difference between men and women: no guy has ever come up to me and said, “Nice shoes!”</p>
<p>Praxis only requires 220 hours. So it is possible to work at an unpaid internship and do a paid job on top of it in any given summer…that can help defray the costs a lot! I realize that’s not practical for some internship programs, where they require you to stay a certain length of time, but it helps some folks. </p>
<p>I used Praxis to intern at a developer of green affordable housing in Missoula, Montana. I’d never been to the west before, they’d never had an intern before, and it was a fabulous 6 weeks (and Missoula was pretty affordable–the $2000 covered my rent, food, airfare, and some recreation…though I still regret not splurging and heading up to Glacier National Park! Oh well, maybe I’ll go back on vacation one day…)</p>
<p>R6L, I completely understand your being jealous that, even with Praxis funding, an experience you find/found attracive is/was beyond your reach, but available to those have more resources than you do. Life, however, is not fair and neither Praxis, nor any other program at the college, is designed to eliminate life’s inequities. </p>
<p>Praxis will never fund every student, to the extend that she would like (just like the full-need finaid packages often require families to dig a bit deeper than they would like). Still, the program does serve it’s stated purpose: to put unpaid interships w/i reach for most students - - at a college meets 100% of need for the 60% of students receiving finaid, including the 25% the student body who are Pell recipents. That a whole lot of money the college is spending in support of economic diversity and accessibility.</p>
<p>D was able to take an unpaid internship thanks to Praxis, but her first-choice job (in a city where we have no family or friends) was just not possible. That the more attractive job was out of reach is not a Praxis deficiency, it’s just part of life. We are not entitled to everything we want and we must learn to live within our means.</p>
<p>Finally, you should not presume to know who need the money and who doesn’t.</p>
<p>Can’t kids get together and share an apartment near a big city where there are lots of internships? When I was younger I worked for a congressman and I visited Washington DC for a week and stayed in a house that was being rented/shared by about seven or eight kids. This certainly reduces costs. Also, how about using public transportation instead of a car at $4-$5 a gallon? Also, I remember the interns used to crash all the big fundraisers and get plenty of food and dare I say beer at no cost. Bottom line is, you’ve got to be creative. I think $2400 can go far if you’re careful and use your wits and some common sense.</p>
<p>What you’re talking about is/was easier in DC - - where even if a student is not participating in one of the many school-sponsored programs (when I was in DC, the Gov Dept arranged for two of us to house-sit for a Smith alum who had a double town-house across the street formt he G’town campus), she can glom-on to the intern horde. Some, but far fewer, of those freebie opptys do exist in NYC and other cities.</p>
<p>@TD: I think Carolyn was reacting to your comment about bumping into the royal couple and being invited to the wedding. It sounds as though your daughter did just that – and was currently in England.</p>
<p>MWFN: oh…<em>that</em>! That was a retrotemporal contrafactual hypothecation.</p>
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</p>
<p>Yeah. That. :)</p>
<p>TD, of course! Why didn’t I know that? Silly me! ;)</p>
<p>R6L, making Praxis work would take some organization but you’re an organized kind of person or you wouldn’t be HP next year. Picking up on what Boss said, once you’ve figured out where you want to do your Praxis, is there a way in the Smith online community to send out an email blast asking if anyone would like to room with you in whatever city for the summer? Surely there’s a way to network. One of my daughter’s Smith friends needs to stay in Boston this summer for her internship and she already used up her Praxis last summer in Atlanta. My daughter contacted a Barnard friend whose mom has a house community in a big old house and the Smithie will rent from her. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.</p>
<p>Thank you all for all of your suggestions. I’m already in the planning phase of trying to make a Praxis a possibility at some point. I just was venting a bit, but I know I’ll buckle down and make it work when I need to if I want it that badly.</p>
<p>Also, fp, I never meant to insinuate that I knew who needed the money and who didn’t. I was speculating and that’s not fair, so I apologize for that</p>
<p>This is either spam or you didn’t read the thread…smh</p>
<p>USERDAVID77, the Smith PRAXIS program is about internships for Smith students. You are thinking about the PRAXIS testing program for teacher licensure.</p>