Most incredible experience of my life

I do not have enough amazing things to say about USAC or about Alicante. The on-site staff (Luis, Sylvain and Veronica) are incredible and are always in the office available to help with anything you could possibly need, such as travel or restaurant recommendations. All of the USAC professors are great- they're very clear, extremely fun to be in class with, incredibly nice and overall great teachers. What I am most grateful for is that I decided to live with a host family. I knew from personal experience with different program providers in other parts of Spain that host family situations could be risky, however USAC did an exceptional job choosing the families and everyone who decided to live with a family loved the experience. I only had a host mother in my family and she treated me like family and was an amazing cook. For anyone considering studying abroad, I believe that living with a family is truly the only way to become fully immersed in the culture and the best way to learn the language. I also really enjoyed being set up with an intercambio (a local student language partner) as it was a great way to meet/hang out with locals and practice my Spanish. The excursions USAC took us on were a lot of fun (and we were always fed really well!) and Alicante is an amazing city. It is small enough so that everything is relatively close (and walkable) but it still has everything I could want in a city (good shopping, fun night life, great restaurants, beaches, etc.). It is also very close by tram to many cute cities nearby that are beautiful and fun to explore so there is never a shortage of things to do. Overall, this summer I met a lot of great people, improved my Spanish drastically and experienced a lot of personal growth. I cannot wait to have the opportunity to return to Alicante and I highly recommend USAC and Alicante to anyone interested in studying abroad (which I believe everyone should do).