Wake Up Call

It did not take me long to realize how expensive living in Ireland was going to be. After all, my first cab ride cost me 30 euro. Sandwiches and hamburgers at cafes can cost 10-15 euro and even McDonald's costs as much or more here in euros what it would cost in the States in dollars (1 euro=1.47 dollars). I have made a few choices to cut down on my expenses but it can be tricky. Groceries are still pretty expensive but I do save on food by not eating out. I am also riding my roommate's bike to class instead of taking the bus which can be as much as $5 or more a day. I am still looking to travel while I am here but instead of the more exotic places I was thinking of going (Majorca and Grand Canary Islands being two of them) I am looking into the more attractive 50 euro or less fares to Paris, London or Germany.

These things are helping but I still cannot help but feel like the Irish have much more money than I do. Many of my classmates have vacationed in Thailand or the US (San Diego is a favorite) for weeks at a time during the summers without working! This seems crazy to me because my summers have always been focused on work and it made me wonder how they could afford it. I'm sure part of it has to do with their parents and the recent economic boom known as Celtic Tiger (needless to say, those days are over with the current recession).

However, during a discussion with a classmate today, I was informed that the Irish pay close to nothing for an undergraduate college education. Many students simply go to school for free while many others pay as little as 1,600 euro per year. Post-graduate education is different although "mature" students (over 25 I think) like the student I spoke with today pay nothing while the average cost of grad school for others is around 5,000 euro per year. This is way higher than the out-of-state tuition I pay in Illinois and significantly higher the 100,000K+ for med school in California Ben has told me about. Getting into this conversation made me realize how expensive education is in the U.S. and made me depressed to think about the debt myself and other American college students will have hanging over our heads for years. It also gave me a different perspective on the lives of the students at my school, UCD (University College Dublin), whose parents only need to pay for their accommodation (and sometimes not even that) and books while American parents save for college from birth. It kind of makes me wonder why education is so expensive in the U.S. Are there too many colleges? Maybe; my fellow classmate told me fewer people in Ireland take advantage of free college education whereas in the U.S. everybody goes to college somewhere. Is our education really worth more? That I'm not sure either.

Anyways, this rant does have a point. It gives me a new appreciation for my degree and my education and motivation to get the most out or it and put it to best use. And I do not mean to say that the Irish are any less appreciative of their education but rather it was somewhat of a shock to find out how lucky they have it.