Because I'm Missing Vienna

The best advice I can give any college student about my experience in higher education is the importance of studying abroad.  Nothing in life compares to time abroad.  I learned more about life and myself during those five months in Vienna than from any other experience.  

The common excuse to not studying abroad is “I don’t have time in my schedule” or “It’s too expensive.”  Puh-lease.  It’s easy to study abroad, and it’s not much more than spending your tuition on the St. Louis campus.  First off, study abroad your sophomore or fall of your junior year.  This leaves time if a class conflict arises.  For scheduling purposes, take general education classes abroad.  Everyone needs them.  And the money thing?  You pay the same tuition for any Webster Campus.  There are a lot of them, too, in Europe, Asia, and South America.  If this is your first time studying abroad, Webster pays for the plane ticket.  There’s a savings of or almost $1,000.  Living in the dorms costs the same too, with the exception of the conversion rate.  It cost a little more when I was in Austria because the Euro was worth more than the dollar.  But it didn’t dent my pocketbook too bad.  

When abroad, you only have to take 12 hours to be considered a full-time student.  This left me plenty of time to travel.  With my savings from my summer job, I traveled by bus, plane, and train to fourteen cities.  Trust me, my summer job wasn’t some fancy paid internship – I was a hotel maid one summer and a cashier at JC Penny the next.  So how did I travel for so cheap?

Hostels:

Staying in a hostel instead of a hotel saves you dough.  Period.  One night in a room for ten costs about $10.  Yes, I did say there’s ten beds to a room.  I honestly never had problems with any roommates.  A lot of people complain about security, but I felt safe all the time.  There are locked drawers you get with your lovely* bed.  You can book these rooms online for any hostel at HostelWorld.com or HostelBookers.com.  Hostel World gives you a travel guide, but has a booking fee.  Hostel Bookers, on the other hand, have no booking fees or travel guides. 

Planes:

Ryanair.com is cheap and simple, no doubt about it.  I got a round trip ticket from Bratislava, Slovakia, to London, England for 13 Euro ($20).  Just make sure you get there in time because if you don’t arrive on time, you don’t get on the plane.

Edreams.net compares cheap plane tickets from a lot of different companies.  They generally cost more, but at least they give you more options than Ryanair.  I used this website to find planes to Greece and France.  A 20 hour train ride didn’t sound fun, so I paid a bit more.

Trains: 

These are already cheap enough! 

For some extra savings, use the IBIS card you get at orientation.  This lets you in most sites for free or a discount.  Instead of paying 20 Euro, I saw ancient Olympia, Greece, for free.  Visiting the Coliseum costs less, as did climbing to the top of the Eifel Tower.

So, no more excuses.  Find a Webster campus that best fits your style and go (personally, I recommend Vienna, Austria, because it’s the best).  Get that application from the Study Abroad office, turn it in by Spring Break to study this Fall, and have the time of your life.  This will be one college decision you won’t feel bad about in the morning.




*By lovely, I meant don't expect more than a thin mattress on plywood. 

Brittney