CGS Cancels 2021 Boston-London Program

By Cerelia Liu

CGS has cancelled its Boston-London program for the second summer in a row. CGS Dean Natalie McKnight announced the cancellation in an email to students last week, just days before BU cancelled every other summer study abroad program.

Because of the current pandemic, the college leadership felt that it was impossible to keep 600 students safe in London and simultaneously provide them with high-quality cultural experiences.

Instead, the school replaced the Boston-London program with the Boston-New England program. The class of 2024 will spend their second semester on campus for the summer. 

The cancellation of the Boston-London program is a disappointing news for students in CGS, including Matthew Chelon Mijares, a freshman.

“I’m definitely bummed out, especially because London was one of the cities that I wanted to visit the most,” he said. “And also, I’m a Boston native. So spending the summer in Boston’s not really exciting for me. So yeah, it’s, it was a bummer, because it was one of the reasons I chose bu over some other schools.” 

While Mijares is disappointed by the news, he can still understand the school’s concern about safety for the students and believe that the school made the right call. With the Boston-New England replacement program, Mijares thinks that Boston’s rich history will be a beneficial experience with conditions. 

“I think it could compensate if the students that attended aren’t from like the area,” he said. “So if you’ve never been to Boston before, because it’s a lot more likely that, you know, the students haven’t been to London, so it’d be a newer experience. But for anyone that’s from Boston, or from the area, or even from New York, we’ve had access to Boston for a very long time. So it doesn’t work out for us.” 

In addition, Mijares said that the experience in London may be overall more beneficial to all of the students because it provides them with the opportunity to explore a different culture and history there. 

Kaylynn Michael, another freshman in CGS, said she was expecting that the Boston-London program would be cancelled before the official announcement, but it is still a disappointing news to her. Michael also thinks that the school made the right decision. 

With the replacement program, Michael talked about the possible difference with Boston-London program.

“I know that, in normal years, when they go to London and they go to tons of museums and historical places and take lots of field trips,” she said. “And so I think that will be the main difference. It’s like we don’t even know if we’ll be able to take field trips at all because of COVID restrictions.”

Besides that, Michael thinks that the school should lower the price for the Boston-New England program.