Visit Spain, but skip the ISA! Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The workload was about that of middle or high school classes. Some of the teachers were extremely nice, but having studied castilian since 5th grade, the level of coursework was a bit low compared to my middle-of-the-road state home university. Grading was pretty much identical to my US school, as were teaching methods, although again, they were for a much younger audience (8-9th grade). The expectations of us in University of Salamanca were very, very low, as the cultural expectation of both Spanish and International youth was being out at night from 11 pm to 6 or 7 in the morning, when people would eat churros and then come to class still inebriated or barely hungover.

On-site administration of your program

The program coordinators are very aware that the ability to stay with host families is an industry. The host parents are paid a sum of money, and they strive to use as little of that money as possible in the student's upkeep such that the majority is profit. Most host families have been with ISA a long time, and if you complain about them, ISA will defend them. This made overall "relations" with our program coordinator very strained. Now that I have taken a postgraduate degree (master's) in a European school, I have the perspective sufficient to say that University of Salamanca just isn't a very competitive school, so the bar is pretty low compared to any top tier US university. I found the vast majority of expectations most like middle or high school (e.g., doing homework in class was practically expected, lots of "worksheets" but no real thought required, lots of in-class games, lots of emotional "learning about each other" in the classroom without much instruction). The program was very small (I think 25 students) but became immediately cliquish, with the sororities represented becoming almost instantaneously tribal. I was pretty disappointed with the program overall, but it fulfilled a requirement I needed to graduate with honors (extra-curricular learning experience), so I wouldn't take it back. My advice, if you want to have experiences abroad, just go. Don't go with a US-based program.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Our street (it is a city) was pretty safe, and coming from Baltimore/Newark I did not feel unsafe there (but take that for what its worth, I am from very dangerous places). Our host parent was awful, as I have said before, and was abusive in that she would grab us and not let us shower for more than 5 minutes without turning the lights and water off (I had hip-length hair at the time, so this was ridiculous). She would get upset with us for turning on lights when we wanted to read at night, and there was only one window with a metal sheet over it. It did help me bond with the other two students living with us, since the other student was from a sheltered community in the dakotas and used to cry almost every night. It didn't bother me as much as it bothered her. The good thing about our host parent is that although she would threaten us that she "knew English so we better not say anything bad about her," she really only spoke to us in rapid, very vernacular Spanish. Thus, I did get better at Spanish so that I could take her direction without being grabbed or having an incident. We were about a 10 minute walk to class, and about 5 minutes to the city center, so I spent the vast majority of my stay actively avoiding being home. Luckily, another student was in a host family of violent alcoholics that threw things at each other fairly regularly, so she was avoiding home too, and we stayed out together most of the time. Many, many Spanish women are divorced (this was explained to me at length multiple times by our host mom as having to do with the economy and the cultures of women), and as such our host family consisted of one woman who mostly treated us as clients/part of the system that she was getting income from. Most Spanish people I have met, both in Spain and living in Russia and England are extremely xenophobic and cautious about outsiders (call it a holdover from the Franco-era of isolation). My host family was no different, and one of my closest friends, who was of Filipino heritage was regularly referred to by an ethnic slur rather than her name, both by my host parent and our teachers. Our host mother would often get upset at my and my American roommate because we were "lazy Americans" unlike the industrious and social Japanese girls she sometimes got to host.

Food was fine. I don't have any peculiar dietary issues, and I have a fairly open mind toward eating. I love cured meats, and they're Everywhere in Spain.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

The program trips were actually the best part of my whole experience. We went to the beach in Portugal at one point, and it was like a beautiful painting. Every sidewalk was mosaic with designs, every building was painted beautiful colors, the water was gorgeous, the people were gorgeous, the food (cured ham and white cheese on pastry!) was incredibly delicious and decadent, and the overall culture was much, much more open and multicultural and less xenophobic. The first night we were there, around 2 in the morning, we found ourselves in a small coffee shop owned by a Portuguese man whose son worked about 30 min from where my parents worked, and it was so comforting and heartwarming in the middle of all of the Spanish stress that I could almost cry just thinking of it. Ever since then, I keep trying to find time to make another trip to Portuguese shores. It's absolutely incredible there.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

Very safe, very healthy. Healthcare is extremely accessible as most chemists/pharmacists can prescribe medicine and diagnose ailments. If you have certain issues, you can get way, way more potent pharmaceuticals in the EU than in the US (I have eczema and that was one thing that was awesome being in Spain). It's definitely not as "developed" a country as the US, but its no less functional (perhaps, moreso).

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

Most of the Spaniards we met were very excited to speak English with us, and did not want us to attempt Spanish except in the idiosyncratic performance sense (can you say "dog?"). The majority of the other ISA students had little to no Spanish experience, so you could not speak Spanish with them either. Our ISA office, which initially was touted a "Spanish language only" zone for faux-immersion purposes quickly devolved into ENglish for necessity's sake for this reason. I used Spanish much more frequently in communicating with other study abroad students from other countries who did not speak English as well as Spanish. Two of my closest friends from the trip were a girl from Turkey and a girl from Singapore both of whom spoke Spanish as their only non-native language.

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