Ahlan wa sahlan!

Introductions are so awkward, aren't they?

Today is Monday. In just over two weeks I'll be leaving on a study abroad trip to Fez, Morocco. As part of my Gilman grant from the lovely people at the US government, I'll be keeping a travel blog to help prospective study abroad students learn from my misadventures with trying to study abroad on a limited budget. Because I wanted to get the awkward introductions out of the way while no one is reading this, I thought I'd just post a little about myself and a few teasers for what I'll be blogging about in the next few months. 

I'm a 25-year old senior at University of Washington (henceforth to be known as UW.) If, dear reader, you are thinking that 25 seems a little old to still be an undergraduate, I can only say that I agree with you whole-heartedly, which is why I am so looking forward to graduating upon my return from Morocco. I'm a Near Eastern Language and Civilization (NELC) major, which can mean a really shocking variety of things at UW, but for me it means I study Arabic language and contemporary Arab history, culture and politics. (Other NELC majors might study Farsi or Hebrew or Turkish and the civilizations of any number of regions/eras, which is part of the joyfully nonspecific nature of the NELC major.) 

I'm graduating at 25 and not 22 for one very simple reason: money. Money isn't generally a polite thing to talk about, but it's something we all deal with. I don't know a single college student who doesn't have some financial-related issue determining the school they attend, the school they transferred from, the number of credits they take or the amount of studying they sacrifice to holding down a job. So I'm going to talk about money. I'm going to talk about money not in the general sense but in the very specific, with numbers. It isn't the most comfortable thing to talk about, but I think it would be helpful for many (and I know it would have been helpful for me) if, instead of treating money like a taboo, intangible abstraction,   we could just speak frankly. 

Money shouldn't stop any one from getting the kind of education they want, but it turns out Santa Claus isn't real and unicorns don't live in the arboretum (I know, I checked.) Money stops us all the time. I hope that money won't stop you from studying abroad. I'll wax poetic at great length about the benefits of studying abroad at some later date, but for now I just want to say that studying abroad is important even if your major isn't about studying foreign language or culture. If you're thinking about studying abroad and worried about how you can afford it, I hope you keep reading. In the days, weeks and months ahead I will blog about:

*How I budgeted for study abroad 

*Suggestions on better ways to budget for study abroad now that I've learned what I did wrong

*How to apply for scholarships, aid and beg money off of family/friends. 

*How to score cheaper plane tickets

*What I'm packing for Morocco

*What I wish I would/would not have packed for Morocco

*What to do/not to do while traveling abroad

*Safety/health tips

*Tips for family members with students abroad

*Links to better and more professional resources for UW & non-UW students

*Adventure stories! Photos! Videos! Possibly cute animals! 

So welcome to my blog*, sorry I'm a bit awkward at first, but I'm really glad to have you. Please feel free to post questions/comments or to e-mail me directly (let me know if it is OK to answer your question on the blog.) If you've got a study-abroad experience to share, by all means, post a comment! 

*I should warn you that, though this is part of my Gilman follow-on project, any views expressed here (ie. socks are a useless thing to pack!) are entirely my own and in no way a reflection of the UW, the NELC department, the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship foundation, the US government or President Barack Obama.