This is a special post to my fellow Macaulians. (Is that what we call students from Macaulay? Hehe)

If you’re unfamiliar with the Macaulay Opportunities Fund, here’s a brief explanation, summarized probably inadequately by yours truly:
All Macaulay Honors College students (that is, the CUNY honors college) are entitled to a fund $7500. Oh, it’s kind of like a trust fund and Macaulay is our wealthy parent who makes sure that we are set for our college-career lives. All joking aside, the money is to help fund our study abroad adventures, unpaid internships and research assistantships, graduate prep courses, service projects, etc. As long as you can provide a convincing argument, the money is yours. But otherwise, it sits in the “Macaulay bank,” untapped. To get the money, you have to fill out the proposal and submit various documents. Although you are already entitled to the money (meaning the process is not competitive and the $7500 is already set out for you), it technically isn’t yours until you are approved. The whole proposal is done, I believe (1) to make sure you’re not using it irresponsibly and (2) to help prepare you for writing future proposals (to grants, fellowships, scholarships, etc.). So it’s all in your benefit! But that doesn’t make the actual process any easier.

So here’s a rundown of my experience:

About a week before the Spring semester began, my adviser (shout out to my wonderful adviser, Cheryl!) sent out an email about Opportunities Fund deadlines, including when to submit our first draft, when to schedule a meeting, and when to submit the completed application. I looked at the dates, saw I had time. Decided to take it slow. (A word to the wise, don’t take it slow. Just like medication, everything is best dealt with right away. Quick, done, out of the way. Better to attack it headfirst with great yet brief pain than to drag it out for as long as possible. The latter will only succeed in making you weary by the end.)

I started drafting my Statement of Justification ahead of time. (I already had experience writing one for another scholarship, so it wasn’t so bad.) Still, I procrastinated on this part. Big time. I handed in a rough draft, but Cheryl told me that it was  lacking. I needed to show how passionate I am. I needed to “put a little more, technically writing, oompah,” into my essay, “to help convey a sense of excitement, accomplishment, and growth.” I revised it and BAM! Done. 🙂

The rest of the documentation was quite simple for me. So I’ll just do a brief summary of each component:

(This is the document: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/current-students/study-grant/sg-sa.pdf.)

General requirements: all good. I checked everything done. The only thing that I had to really do was the Opportunities Fund Online Quiz. It is very simple to complete once you know the guidelines. Takes like 10 minutes.

Application Documentation:

• Course syllabus: because of the way this exchange program runs, I don’t register for a school until September. So there was no way I could hand in a course syllabus if I don’t even know what school I am going to! I just handed in a typed up paragraph explaining this situation.
• Official brochure: this was a bit difficult to find. I just used these two sites – Queens College and Hunter College – for the quotes, dates, etc. (The Queens College website oddly does not contain all the information.)
• I used the two websites above to fill out the program information. I’ll provide you with the information that I put down here:
  • Sponsor/Host College: Queens College
  • Name of International Institution: University of Paris
  • City, Country: Paris, France
  • Length of stay: 10 months (I can’t remember exactly what I put here…)
  • Dates: From 08/25/2013 to 06/20/2013
  • Number of classes/credits: 5 classes, 15 credits (I just put down what I usually take here at Brooklyn College, for formality’s sake)
  • Number of classes/credits accepted at your home college: same as above
• Statement of Justification: I already talked about. I might go more in-depth about it in a future post – my specific reasons for embarking on this exchange experience.
  • And to receive funding, you have to agree to do one of the following: share your experience at home campus, participate in a study abroad event, write a photo essay, or blog. As you can see, I’m already blogging. But I would also love to share my experience at my home campus and at Macaulay. I am excited! (Because how many students are daring and fortunate enough to do a completely immersive exchange program for a year in a country with a foreign language?! Not many.)
• BUDGET BREAKDOWN:
  • Program Fees: all to a whooping…$50. Haha. Yup, just the application fee. Everything else is CUNY tuition and fees.
  • Housing: I found some websites online listing apartment rentals. I printed one out from LODGIS.com that seemed to have a median price: 755 euros. Then I showed the conversion on the application. At the time, 1 euro equaled approximately $1.31. 755 euros equaled approximately $992.50. $992.50 x 10 months = $9925.
  • Airfare: I checked on STA Travel’s website for rates. Checking for round trip tickets with a return date over a year in advance is impossible, so I just chose the latest return date possible. The nice thing that STA does is they make a chart of various ticket prices, comparing airlines. I took the median price in that chart: $968.90
  • Meals: I used the per diem listed on the application. $45 per day. 293 days x $45/day = $13,185. Now THAT is is a ridiculous number. There is no way I would spend $13,000 on food alone! But this was just for the per diem (so that I don’t have to report receipts on every single food that I buy).
  • I skipped the optional part of the budget breakdown because all of this adds up to more than my total Opportunities Fund.
  • TOTAL REQUEST: $7500
  • I just submitted proof for each one of these budget breakdown categories and done.

(Over the course of my abroad experience, I’ll update you on my actual budget.)

Everything is fairly easy. And if you’re going through this program, I just helped you out immensely 😀 Now you don’t have to scour the internet searching for these numbers. I’ve happily provided websites for your reference! Don’t stress the Opportunities Fund portion. There are even bigger obstacles to overcome later on. Save your energy!

Bonne chance!