It's that time of year again. With fall and PSLs (Pumpkin Spice Lattes) comes.....Opp Fund application time! For those of you wondering what the Opp Fund is, it's short for the Opportunities Fund. Basically, as a Macaulay student, you are endowed $7500 to use for study abroad, unpaid internships, educational conferences, grad school applications, honors projects, and tons of other opportunities that you would otherwise be paying for out of pocket. Macaulay believes that you should not have to do so, therefore the endowment of $7500 per student.
However! You have to apply for this money, justify its use, and fills out all sorts of paperwork before you go gallivanting off to Europe. Which is what I'm currently doing at home on this beautiful Saturday. I'm applying for a winter study abroad program/class in Florence, Italy about the Italian Renaissance. I've never been out of the country (Canada doesn't count), and I'm super excited to go to Europe.
Now a lot of people I know use their money for all sorts of things (as listed above). I plan to use all of my money for studying abroad. I just find that to be the most valuable experience I could possibly have with that money. I want to stretch my $7500 as far as it will go, and then make up the difference. I really wanted to do a semester abroad, but I found that I didn't have the time due to a double major and other concerns. Therefore, I plan on applying for another study abroad program in Paris for next summer. This program is on the literature written about Paris. Having taken 12 years of French, being an English major, and basically loving French culture and food, I am ridiculously excited to go there.
Despite the fact that I will have to pay for some of the trip, I'm incredibly lucky that Macaulay will pay for one and a half trips! There's so many options for trips, from CUNY, SUNY, and even other programs. You can even propose one from outside their database. And Macaulay will pay for your tuition there if it's CUNY-equivalent (which most universities in Europe are).
Right now I'm just trying to deal with the financial ins-and-outs of this process, documenting my costs and such so Macaulay can appropriately fund me. I keep telling myself this will all be worth it when I'm in Italy. Just four months and I'll be looking at this everyday:
(Credit: http://spanishworksinc.com/images/cities/Florence.jpg)
After years of dreaming about going to Europe, all of my dreams are coming true (and all at once)!
Erica
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