Learning The Basics

At Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., 20-year-old Skyy Calice lives with three of her sorority sisters in a house off campus. She says as a freshman, she relied heavily on her parents for money.

“I would spend any money that I made on my own ... on what I wanted to, and I would go back to them and say, ‘Oh, I need this for a book’ or ‘I need this’ and they were OK with that,” she says. But Calice says when she decided to move off campus her junior year, her parents said she was on her own. “I had to get my act together financially,” she says.

Calice is a double major in criminal justice and sociology. She says when it comes to finances, she knows the basics. Living on her own has taught her to budget, but she has made some missteps.

“I actually got caught up spending a little too much – doing a little extra shopping when I should have been paying bills,” she says. “But I’ve never been in any serious financial trouble. I’ve never had any credit cards just because, you know, I don’t want to take that path.”

At this point, Calice says her school loans are enough to think about. She has received $24,000 in scholarships and grants each year and funded the rest of her education through loans. Her loan debt when she graduates this December will be slightly more than $30,000.

Calice doesn’t think that’s so bad. “I talked to other people – their loans are that in one year,” she says. “So I’m really not excited about paying them back, but I’m glad that it was such a low number.”

And while dreading the loan payback, Calice says she’ll manage. She has a job now at a juvenile detention center and later plans to become a police officer.

After Reading Activities

Activity I: Mastering Vocabulary

1. Fill in the gaps with correct prepositions. Then make up sentences using the phrases.

2. Match the two halves of the expressions used in the text.

Activity II: Answering the Questions and Comparing

2. Look at the table which you filled in while reading the text. Compare the three students’ financial situations.

3. Based on the stories, what conclusions can you make about efficient ways of paying for college and covering expenses?

4. How do people pay for college in Russia? Is it common to take out government or private loans or to save for college? Are there any grants and scholarships? Do students work to finance college?

5. Who do you think should pay for college – students, their parents or both? Give arguments supporting your point of view.

ACTIVE SPEAKING

Project

Would you like to see with your own eyes what studying at American colleges and universities is like and how it is different from studying in Russia?

Work in groups of three. Go to the site http://www.campustours.com/productions which offers multimedia tours of various U.S. colleges and universities. These virtual tours are presentations aimed at providing information (both facts and students’s opinions) about different educational institutions.

Here are guidelines for doing the project:

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 882