Program Reviews

My time in Sevilla was one of personal growth, relaxation, and friendship. The people are kind and the professors are excellent. Sevilla is a beautiful city which fosters community because there are many places to meet up with friends, and the city is structured for walking or riding a bike (Sevilla has a cheap bike rental which I highly recommend).

The program took us on many trips to see important and interesting parts of the city as well as to different prominent cities around Andalucia (some were free, some with a fee). I hear the housing is hit-and-miss, but I had an awesome host family who I miss very much and plan to see again.

If you go in the Spring, you will get to be there during Semana Santa (Holy Week before Easter Sunday) and the Feria (April Fair, a week long of flamenco dancing and partying - I recommend taking the dance class offered by the program so you can have more fun dancing with people during the Feria!). Two thumbs up!

Everyone dreams about their study abroad experience. You picture it a certain way--envisioning it as the best time of your life, traveling the world, immersing yourself in a new culture and making BFFs. While this little five or six month nugget of your college experience really will fulfill these cliche-d visions, it is a lot more than that. It will challenge you in realizing what you are actually capable of. You will feel awkward, lonely, bold, exhausted and giddy. You will see incredible landscapes that honestly feel like you are stepping into a fairy-tale, contrasted with difficult images of poverty and political corruption that are genuine daily struggles for many of the people you meet, especially in Argentina. But if you are interested in Spanish, if you feel ready to be pushed, if you care about having honest conversations about cultural differences and if you feel a spark to just GO and DO, then you should. Cordoba is small enough where the lack of English speakers will force you to learn Spanish (and speak it), but big enough where you will never be bored.
The Spanish Studies Abroad program is not the most rigorous course load, so if you are looking to be pushed academically, this program may not be for you. However, if you want a good balance of taking classes, traveling, and getting involved in other ways, then this program offers that balance. Your experience is definitely up to your efforts, though. Spanish Studies Abroad will introduce you to a "speaking partner" to practice your Spanish and give you a friend, but it will be up to you to continue this relationship. They will provide awesome professors to teach your classes, but you will choose to listen and gain knowledge from them. You will have to choose to go exploring, initiate conversation with your host family, ask a taxi driver what he thinks about the United States, visit a memorial site of the last military dictatorship in Argentina, or share a choripan with the screaming soccer fan at the Belgrano stadium. All of these things will be up to your doing, but are honestly worth it. My time in Cordoba and with Spanish Studies Abroad was wonderful. Sure, the program has room for improvement like most do, but Cordoba is a great location for Spanish immersion and Argentina offers beautiful people and diversity and fun that deeply impacted me and can do the same for you.

Córdoba is a city in movement. There's always something going on, yet it doesn't have the hectic and caotic feel like Buenos Aires. Córdoba's big, but it takes you in, it's homey. I couldn't have asked for a better study abroad experience.

For me, the best part about travelling with Spanish Studies Abroad was that they give you a very solid base to start off from, but allow you to make your experience what you want it to be. They set everyone up with a family and are very willing to work with you to make sure you're comfortable. Apart from that, the Speaking Partners program sets every student up with an Argentine partner to give you a kickstart into integrating yourself into Argentine culture. This is the base that they give you, but after that it's up to you to decide what to do with your experience, how far to immerse yourself, whether to focus on just Spanish studies with the other international students, leaving you with plenty of time to explore other parts of the culture, or to challenge yourself further by taking a class or two at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba with other Argentine students, which is definitely harder, but gives you a truer experience in the life of an actual Argentine student.
With this program, they make sure you're taken care of, so that you can enjoy to the max the warm people, the "buena onda", and everything else that Córdoba has to offer.

I was placed in magnificent host home and surrounded by lovely neighbors. My classes pushed me to excel in my spanish and using it day to day greatly improved my overall understanding of the language. I would recommend 2 months abroad to anyone striving to truly learn and understand another language.

I studied abroad in Spain with little Spanish speaking abilities. The course work during the J-term was pivotal for my academic foundation. For that first month of classes, I was privileged to have a grammer class with only one other student and the professor. It was the one-on-one attention that was necessary for me to grasp Spanish (even if just a little bit). The rest of the semester provided equally as wonderful. The classes were challenging but professors were always willing to help you along the way. My host family became my family there. My host mom would patiently sit with me every night as I practiced presentations, studied for tests, and wrote compositions. I have remained incredibly close to the family visiting them after I graduated college and hosting one of the daughters on two different occasions at my house in the States. The program's design was just what I needed to learn Spanish and come home conversational. The relationships I built with my host family are lifelong relationships. It was an incredible program.

The community in Cordoba is a great place to be and offers a ton of opportunities. I learned to dance and really had to practice speaking in Spanish due to a smaller proportion of the locals speaking English compared to in Buenos Aires. The food is wonderful, and the location is great for traveling all around the country and even the continent. The support staff is great in the US, but drops off a little bit once you reach the country. Most families are wonderful, but I happened to have bad luck, that being said, I would go back and do the whole thing again in a heart beat.

I studied abroad in Seville, Spain in the fall of '09. I went because I wanted to learn Spanish, but also because I wanted to experience another culture and learn more about other parts of the world. During my semester abroad, I visited Morocco, Barcelona, Caceres, Trujillo, Merida, and various other cities in southern Spain. Each of these trip taught me different things about Spanish (and Moroccan) culture, but the best memories I have of study abroad are from the time I spent in Sevilla.

I lived with a house mother named Carmen. It was just the two of us in the apartment, so we had to learn to make conversation and be respectful of each other's schedules/personalities. We certainly had some bumps in the road, but living with her was one of he most enriching learning experiences for me. She only spoke Spanish, so I had to constantly be practicing my language skills. Also, she had a much different perspective on Spanish culture than the Spaniards I met who were my own age, so I was able to get a fuller picture of Spanish life.

Most days, I would wake up, take the bus/tram to school, and have my morning class. Then I would spend some time with friends, go home, eat lunch, and go back to school. Then I would have an afternoon and/or evening class, then go back home for dinner. The school's classes were conducted only in Spanish, so they were definitely challenging. We were encouraged to discuss our classwork in Spanish and to participate as much as possible. The Center also had internet access and several computer labs to facilitate not only homework, but also keeping in touch with family and friends from home.

The Center also had excellent teachers and staff who made adjusting to Spanish life much easier for me. I got sick several times while abroad, and they were all incredibly understanding and helpful in getting me to a doctor and helping me with insurance. Getting sick while abroad is very difficult because you are without all the comfort and amenities of home, so it was great to have a support system like the one at CC-CS.

Ad far as free time, I did a lot of walking from place to place, and most of my memories with friends from study abroad are from walking around the city and stopping in a random cafe for a coffee of glass of wine. Sevilla also has a vibrant and exciting social world, full of clubs and cafes/bars to explore. Spanish culture focuses on being out and about in the city, rather than inside the home. So, it is easy and fun to meet Spaniards who are generally understanding about grammatical errors/cultural faux pas made by abroad students.

Overall, my experience was fantastic. I call upon knowledge and experiences that I got while studying abroad every day, and I am thrilled that I chose CC-CS as my program.