Street sign in St. Andrews. Not pronounced as you would think, but still amusing.

A while after I started posting on study abroad forums, I realized that popular questions from students often focused on where their money was going, who they were paying, and how much they were going to have to dish out. I was lucky in that, when I studied abroad in Scotland, I just made my normal tuition payment to Holy Cross and they worked everything out with the finance office at the University of St. Andrews. But I began to wonder, what if you go through a study abroad organization that isn’t your own (or any) U.S. College or University?

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What I Did To Prepare To Study Abroad

Save Your Money!

Around the time I began studying abroad, I wrote a post titled 7 Things to Remember Before You Leave.  Older and wiser, I’ve written this post which expands on a lot of the points I made in that post and includes some important tips and advice I had left out before.  Read this now and save yourself from stress and headaches later!

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再见 和理大学 Bye, Holy Cross

Believe it or not, I just graduated from Holy Cross at the end of May. Senior year came and went just like that, and it seems like only yesterday I was teeing off on the Old Course for the first time. And while most of my friends and classmates spent the year applying to jobs, I decided to take a different route.

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In case you don’t like sleeping in dirty hostel sheets

The Cocoon "Silk" TravelSheet

We all know one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason we study abroad is to travel. Unfortunately, as college students we’re not going to be staying in 5 star hotels with a new set of silk sheets every night. We’re sleeping in hostels that rent us a couple of sheets and a blanket for a few bucks that we can throw on our lumpy mattress pad. While I have no problem sleeping in the rented hostel sheets, there’s definitely a chance they weren’t cleaned after the last college aged kid slept (or did who knows whatever else) on them.
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I feel as though no self-respecting student can study abroad in any part of Europe and not go to Paris. It’s one of the most important and influential cities in the world: tons of culture, unbelievable food, plenty of sites, and some pretty nice people too. In fact, my trip to Paris might have been my favorite excursion outside of St. Andrews all year.

If you’re worried about breaking your bank in the City of Light, or just have no idea how or where to start your trip, this is how I made it through Paris in three days for almost nothing (other than my flight and hotel), and how you can too.

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