Jose

About Jose’s program:

• Program: Panama Summer 2017, 1 week, Principles of Management course (MBA program credit)

• Program cost: About $1800 including tuition and the room, food was not included

Advice from Jose:

• In Panama, Visa and MasterCard are widely accepted. They also use US currency, but give back change less than $1 in their own currency.

• His bank (Regions) has their own resources on their app to use for budgeting and saving. Check with your own bank to see if they have comparable resources for you to use.

• USF provides a link to a database that gives basic country profiles, which helped Jose prepare for the culture.

• His short program was great for someone who had not been abroad before, and was also cheaper as well.

• This program in particular had everyone book the same flight. Jose had a graduation to attend the weekend after so he made sure to communicate with the professor about an exception to book separately.

How Jose afforded his trip:

• His parents helped pay for his plane ticket as his birthday gift. Depending on what time of the year your program is this could be a Christmas gift as well.

• He received a scholarship through the Muma College of Business.