Money, Money, Money

Unfortunately, money is one of the most important things you need to consider before studying abroad.  I had to save a lot of money in order to go London, and even then I had to skip out on some of the trips to different countries because I couldn’t afford to travel to every single country that I was planning on visiting.  I had to pay roughly 45 dollars every week for my transportation on the underground and buses.  I had to pay for groceries.  Count in souvenirs and the ridiculous exchange rate between dollars and pounds and I was pretty much broke.

            Exchange rates are something that you might want to consider when you decide which country you want to study abroad in.  For a lot of countries, like Australia and New Zealand, the exchange rate is pretty similar to the US.  In other countries, like Argentina, the dollar is worth a lot more once it’s converted.  In most European countries, however, the dollar is very weak, which means that whenever you convert your money, you are losing some of it.  Almost all of the European countries use the euro for their currency, so that makes it easier when you travel around to different countries.  When you convert dollars, to euros, however, the conversion rate is 1 to around 0.75.  It may not seem like a big difference, but it is.  When you buy something for 20 euros, but really you are buying it for 26 dollars.  It was even worse for me after I converted my money to pounds.  I had to keep in mind that I was not spending 20 dollars, but actually 30 dollars.  I had to be very conscious of the exchange rate or I would have very quickly run out of money.  My friends who were studying in Greece visited me for a few days and were in shock at how quickly their money dwindled.  It was kind of amusing that they now understood my pain of spending money those three months I was in London.

Below I have listed all of the exchange rates (currently, they change all the time) for all of the locations that LVC offers in their study abroad program:

Euro (Greece, France, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Germany):  $1 converts to 0.764 Euros

Pounds (England):  $1 converts to 0.659 pounds

Australian dollar:  $1 converts to 0.971 Australian dollars

Argentine peso (Argentina):  $1 converts to 5.034 Argentine pesos

Yuan Renminbi (China):  $1 converts to 6.235 Yuan Renminbi

New Zealand dollar:  $1 converts to 1.195 New Zealand dollars