Tough Adjustment but a Great Experience Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

I absolutely loved my classes while at UB! The two professors that I had were wonderful and really knew how to teach the Spanish language. The school has plenty of people to help and offers printing services, which basically all foreign students will need to utilize. My only two complaints would be the 5 and 6 hour class days that I had during the intensive month class and that the school runs on Latin American time. First, 6 hours in an intensive Spanish language class in one day is a long time. But really, there's no other way to get through those classes in one month. Second, one of the things that you have to get used to about being abroad in Latin America, is that people are often late and services often take quite a bit of time. The same is true of the school.

On-site administration of your program

Raul and Alexia are wonderful, interesting people that clearly care about their students.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

I loved my roommate and the location of my house, but I felt like a boarder rather than a member of the family. Also, we were promised "host families" and nearly every single house was actually a single host mother. This makes a big difference in terms of interaction possibilities and your general experience while abroad. Because of our rooming situation, we always had to tip-toe around and could not shower or make a snack or anything after our host mom had gone to sleep because she slept in the living room, with a curtain pulled across in the evening to transform it to a bedroom. However, Raul was very helpful and would address any concerns we had and I knew that moving out was always a possibility, though I frankly didn't want to deal with the adjustment just to live in a house that was potentially very similar. I had issues with feeling judged and having my host mom raise her voice at me, and should have addressed those sooner.

Breakfast at my host mom's was toast with cream cheese and jam and a piece of fruit. It began as only toast but the fruit was added after we said that the toast was not enough. At first, we could have however many slices of toast we wanted, but then our host mom started putting out exactly six slices of toast in a tupperware container--two for each of us. And some mornings that just isn't enough. Lunch was on your own and there are plenty of nice and decently priced places near school to eat, as well as a plethora of grocery stores. For us, dinner was a very limited, rotated menu. We always had some type of salad, which was wonderful and not the norm in Argentina, but for the most part the food was only decent. Dinner was always between 9 and 10 p.m.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

All of my classes were with foreign students, so I didn't make local friends in class, and for the most part the local students seemed uninterested in making friends with the foreign ones. We pretty much spent time with other foreign students. However, some girls started dating local men and they became very well integrated. As a general rule, the men were more interested in interaction than the women, but that interaction was rarely just a friendship. Even just as groups of foreign students, we learned our way around and found the places we liked to go and quickly developed our own routine. The local culture of BsAs is very eclectic because there are simply so many people from so many places.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

I'd give this 5 stars but for some initial delay in helping me set up my allergy shots. When I was sick, I was taken to the doctor by Alexia within hours of calling Raul.

Sol only houses students in the safest neighborhoods and I was always comfortable. You have to remember that BsAs is a huge city though, so you have to be careful and watch your belongings and walk with people late at night and whatnot.

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

While it is absolutely a possibility to live cheaply in BsAs, you cannot do it if you wish to go out to eat or dance often, travel, or do many of the fun things around Argentina that cost money. I budgeted for about $100/week (which translates to almost ARS$500), and practically never spent less than $125. Though you'll get more than 4 pesos to 1 dollar, most stuff is about 4x as expensive, so prices are pretty similar to in the USA. During my first month, I spent about $500. During the second, $1,150. To be fair, my boyfriend visited me during that month, and that caused me to spend much more money. If people are coming to visit you, plan for it to be expensive! During my third and last month, I spent roughly $1,400, including a trip to Cordoba, which I financed for both me and my roommate. Had I only financed that for myself, I would have spent more like $1,100. Now, I budgeted about $100/week for a 20 week program, so roughly $2,000. Even after shortening my program to 13 weeks, I spent over $3,000. Had I not gone out for dinner and not traveled and not gone dancing, I could have spent less money. But part of being abroad is wanting to be sure you take advantage of every opportunity that you can--so I'd recommend giving yourself some budget wiggle room, or planning to have to make a lot of tough choices.

0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language

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• Host Family

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• Americans
• Host Family

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• Americans

• It was wonderful to have a roommate, somebody in your corner from the beginning that's kind of like a piece of home.
• Planned group activites were a great thing to have.
• I loved that the program was small--we all got to know each other and became a wonderful support system for each other.

• Either offer host families that make you part of the family, or offer other housing options.
• House students closer together. Having never lived in such a big city, I wasn't expecting a 20 minute commute to reach my friends!
• Make it clear that the program provides us cell phones! I bought my own only to have a better one provided when I got there.