Spring Break
Traveling provides economic, intellectual stimulus
Aaron Igdalsky
Issue date: 4/21/09 Section: Commentary
With graduation merely 19 days away, and summer vacation looming for those students returning to Storrs in the fall, full-scale panic has set in for those that have yet to find summer or full-time employment. Even for those of us who will be moving on to grad school in the fall, there is still an ominous hundred-day gap between leaving UConn and starting work on our graduate degrees.
With summer jobs scarcely available (unless spending the summer chasing after whiny third-graders in the heat sounds appealing to you), there aren't many places willing to offer you any dough for your time this summer. Heck, you'd be lucky to find an unpaid internship at this point (I'm not even going to get into the dire situation as far as full-time employment is concerned). But instead of spending the summer on your couch and bumming around the pool, or pouting about how crummy the economy is, do something good for yourself in the interim and for the future: travel abroad.
As someone who has done some traveling (in Latin America and Europe), I can attest to the value of spending time abroad. There is something to be said for getting out of your cozy niche (Storrs) and experiencing something different for a while. There is nothing that can substitute for the experience that spending time immersed in other cultures can provide. It broadens your horizons in a way that no textbook or lecture can.
If that doesn't grab you, this might: traveling is now dirt cheap to many destinations. With the global economy being what it is, and so many people either out of work or fearing looming layoffs, millions of people around the globe have opted to keep their money in the bank or under the mattress. That means that most travel services (hotels/hostels, transportation, etc.) have significantly dropped their prices in hopes of luring bargain hunters out of the woodwork and onto planes and into hotels. Factor in the fact that oil is 68 percent cheaper now than it was last summer, and you have a recipe for deep travel discounts.
With summer jobs scarcely available (unless spending the summer chasing after whiny third-graders in the heat sounds appealing to you), there aren't many places willing to offer you any dough for your time this summer. Heck, you'd be lucky to find an unpaid internship at this point (I'm not even going to get into the dire situation as far as full-time employment is concerned). But instead of spending the summer on your couch and bumming around the pool, or pouting about how crummy the economy is, do something good for yourself in the interim and for the future: travel abroad.
As someone who has done some traveling (in Latin America and Europe), I can attest to the value of spending time abroad. There is something to be said for getting out of your cozy niche (Storrs) and experiencing something different for a while. There is nothing that can substitute for the experience that spending time immersed in other cultures can provide. It broadens your horizons in a way that no textbook or lecture can.
If that doesn't grab you, this might: traveling is now dirt cheap to many destinations. With the global economy being what it is, and so many people either out of work or fearing looming layoffs, millions of people around the globe have opted to keep their money in the bank or under the mattress. That means that most travel services (hotels/hostels, transportation, etc.) have significantly dropped their prices in hopes of luring bargain hunters out of the woodwork and onto planes and into hotels. Factor in the fact that oil is 68 percent cheaper now than it was last summer, and you have a recipe for deep travel discounts.
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