How should I spend my educational reimbursement?

December 17, 2007 5:34 PM

What should I spend my $300 educational reiumbursement on?

I work for an international exchange company (I specifically do outbound high school programs), and we get a $300 stipend to spend on whatever we want... so long as it's somehow related and qualifies as "education." Co-workers have previously bought Rosetta Stone, language/culture courses at a local school, memberships to the World Affairs Council - all great ideas.

But before I do one of those, I'm curious to see if anyone out there has some brilliant ideas! I live in the SF Bay Area. It has to be somehow related to international education, but it can be very loose.

Thanks!

posted by ORthey to Education (6 answers total)

Invest in yourself by taking a community college language course to refresh/build skills in another language, and reinforce that with something like Rosetta Stone.

But don't buy Rosetta Stone - you can get online/from-anywhere access to all the courses for free through the Los Angeles Public Library, which you can join if you show up in person to any of their branches during your next trip down there. There's no residency requirement, but while you can join at a branch or online, you've got to pick up the card within 30 days - more info here.

Even if you spent part of the $300 on getting down to LA to get the library card, you'd probably still come out ahead. The best part is being able to do two or three languages at once, all at different skill levels, so I can stay up to speed with French and Spanish and work on my Russian (no Latvian yet!).
posted by mdonley at 5:48 PM on December 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Can you use the $300 to pay for education for someone else? There are probably many programs in your community which could use that money to help with after school programs, adult literacy, or what have you.

Tis the season.
posted by wfrgms at 5:50 PM on December 17, 2007

How about taking a cooking class in a cuisine of a country you send a lot of kids to? Then you could show them what their family dinners might be like.
posted by jamjam at 6:59 PM on December 17, 2007

Response by poster: jamjam, that's verrrry sneaky... but I like it.
posted by ORthey at 7:03 PM on December 17, 2007

How about chipping in $99 and doing the "Give one, Get one" program with OLPC? That way you get a nifty laptop out of it to expand your educational horizons, and you donate one to a deserving child.
posted by stew560 at 9:11 PM on December 17, 2007

Take some tea classes at The Urasenke Foundation in SF. Though, cooking class looks like much more fun!
posted by cior at 7:14 PM on December 19, 2007