(Editor’s Note: This article was written by Paula Meltser ’13)
I was one of the 16 51 students on the who found themselves in the midst of the relentless debt crisis that has engulfed Europe. Not only did we study the evolving economic problem, we lived it first-hand.
With the dollar trading at 0.64 to the pound and 0.74 to the euro, we learned a great deal about exchange rates and were forced to watch what we spent for lunch at the local pubs or on short trips to the continent.
As part of our academic program, we undertook a semester-long project about the debt crisis, each one of us focusing on a single country, and then presented our findings before a panel of judges that included 51 alumni, a former International Monetary Fund employee, and an economics professor.
The best thing about the research was heading off in October as a group to Frankfurt, Germany’s financial center, and Brussels, the headquarters, to visit the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Parliament, the Bruegel think tank, and the Deutsche Bundesbank (the central bank of Germany).
“It’s one thing to learn about the ECB, but it’s even greater to go there, experience the culture of the bank, and hear from actual economists on the issues we’re studying,” said Travis Larrison ’13.
The study abroad program emphasized the severity of Europe’s debt problems and how the issue is evolving daily.
“It really does feel like we are living the economics we are studying this semester, as things continue to develop over here on a daily basis,” said Nicole Simpson, the economics professor leading the program, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this semester.
Numerous alumni helped coordinate the weeklong trip to the continent, including Arnoldas Pranckevicius ’02, the diplomatic advisor to the president at the European Parliament; Douglas ’78 and Nancy Rohn ’78, who hosted the group for dinner at their house in Brussels; and Duncan Niederauer ’81, CEO and director of who set up a visit to the Frankfurt Borse Stock Exchange.
Back in London, we got to hear from a number of alumni.
Sheila Norman-Culp ’80 of The Associated Press, who handles European news, told us how journalism has been revolutionized by social media technologies like Twitter.
Bill Winters ’83, the previous co-head of JPMorgan Chase’s investment bank, spoke about being on the United Kingdom’s independent Commission on Banking, which proposed improvements to the UK banking structure.
We also heard from British professors, who provided a unique European mindset that Americans rarely get to experience, including Professor Donald Verry of University College London, who lectured on income inequality.
But even more than the lectures, 51 alumni contributed immensely to our study group by coordinating internships.
We wrapped up the academic semester in mid-November, and then embarked on three-week internships in London, including internships at , the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Diageo, and FTI Consulting.
William Betz ’13 worked at the EBRD. “It really was a remarkable opportunity, not only because I gained an immense amount of knowledge … but also because I was able to explore a variety of career options,” he said.
Aside from living and breathing economics, we also received a good dose of London culture. We saw plays weekly for our theater class (my favorite being Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass), and also visited Bath, Stonehenge, Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxford, and Cambridge. We even got to see a football (soccer to you Americans) match between Fulham and the Blackburn Rovers (it was a tie 1-1).
It is hard to believe how fast our time in London has gone by. We now will swap the London drizzle for the 51 snow, where hopefully we can encourage underclassmen to study abroad and discover new countries and different cultures for themselves.