Why You Should Not Take Your Flight Back to Boston
A few months before my dialogue to France started, I got an email from the travel company asking me to confirm that the day my dialogue finished I was taking a flight back to Boston. Any issues with dates could be taken up with one of their agents. Since starting co-op I had been putting some money away designated for this very reason. Immediately I emailed back and said I wanted my flight to be changed for the third of September. Two days before class started. After a small fee, my flight was booked and I was able to start planning a trip after the dialogue.
Unless you’re encouraged through specific aid by the school, taking part in a dialogue of civilizations includes a fee to cover flights, hotels, housing, etc. To me, this means that through whatever means you pay for school, you are paying for a trip abroad in order to take classes in a different culture. I have delved deep into the benefits of going abroad in a previous article already however this benefit does not interfere with the fact that as soon as your program ends you find yourself out of the country and with the option to extend your trip. If you’re lucky like me and have some spare income, this can only mean one thing. Deferring your flight for as long as possible to explore any countries or cities around you for which flight you have also already paid for.
In my case, I find myself in Europe (Paris by the end of the dialogue) and with a world of possibilités to explore. Once I had made up my mind that I would take the opportunity to travel, I began to research and book the most ergonomic ways to travel and lodge in the destinations I wanted to visit. I ended up buying a eurorail pass which included 7 unlimited travel days within one month , booking hostels from anywhere from 15 – 35 euros a night , booking museums in advance, and planning the day to day expenses to ensure I would not be left stranded in a foreign country without any of the aforementioned necessities.
The details are not as important as the outcome. Traveling is a luxury and if you find yourself in a position, of the many offered by northeastern, to push back a plane ticket, book an extra train to see one more city, or, in my case, to dedicate the rest of the summer to explore rather than to go back to familiar territory, do it. Plan in advance, save what you can if you’re on co-op, and make the most of what isn’t explicitly offered by the official program.
