just want to share

**Dutchie** · 10-10-2011, 04:29 AM

As I mentioned in another thread, I have started doing the budget for next year since we have discovered the high cost for our daughter to do her Master in Holland (she will be working part time to help).
Now she has come up with the idea to do her MBA in the US which I think is a great opportunity for her.

Now I don't want to even think about the financial consequences (VERY SCARY - but we have enough time to figure things out I hope) but I am also VERY afraid that she will have as much homesickness as she had last year when she was in London for 5 months.

I feel that she has forgotten just how miserable she was in London and is now almost romanticizing everything. She still says that she loved London but that she missed all her friends and family. I keep telling her that her friends and family would also be in Holland and not with her in the US. She says that it will be different since she will be at university and will make friends more easily than was possible in London when she did an internship at an office.

She has only been to New York and even though that is the US of course, it is by no means typical of life in the US (imho).

I have said to her that if she really, really wants to go to the US for her Master then she has to come up with a plan: where she wants to go, what the costs are, how she will get it financed since if she goes to the US then she can't work here part time to help pay for it and also realize that the costs in the US are WAAYYYY higher than here. There is a small possibility that she can stay with a friend of ours there which would help.

This could possibly be the best thing she could ever do or the biggest (and costliest) mistake of her life (and possibly our lives).

Thoughts?

**Daisygirl** · 10-10-2011, 08:10 AM

Wow. What a HUGE decision.

I'm wondering if this is just a "spread her wings" kind of thing, rather than any true desire to study in the US. You didn't mention where she would be going but there is NOWHERE like NYC!!! If she is somewhere in the Midwest and expecting the Big Apple she will be truly disappointed.

That being said, I've always told my kids to leap at any chance to go abroad or study elsewhere. Nothing, in my opinion, is as broadening as travel and learning a different culture by living it.

At least on a campus, she will have a built in peer group. If she could stay with a friend that is even less chance of loneliness.

If you can swing it, I think it will be the experience of a lifetime for her.

**auntie2many** · 10-10-2011, 08:13 AM

Wow, Dutchie, I do not know what to say other than I will lift it up in prayer for you. I know that perhaps you do not believe the way that I do about prayer, but that is the only way that I know how to help and perhaps give you answers.

I do have a relative that married into my dh's family that is from the Netherlands and left the country when he was 18 years old and has never lived their again, but he does along with his family who is from the USA visit the Netherlands and his family their often because he has a very good paying job that allows him to travel and often times the travel includes trips to the Netherlands.

Wishing the best of luck to your dear daughter and to all of you in your financial decision.

A2M

**zakity** · 10-10-2011, 01:43 PM

Wow! Good luck to her!

**ravenmaniac** · 10-10-2011, 02:51 PM

What a life changing decision. This could be a very positive experience or the experience could be not so enjoyable.

I am sure you and your daughter will make the decision that is the best for her and will think through all the details.

Best of luck!