Program Reviews

This was the most amazing experience of my life hands down. I stayed with a mom in a typical Spanish neighbourhood across the river from the city center. She was the most genuine and welcoming woman I have met and she made the tastiest food ever. I cannot express enough how great my professors were as teachers, but also as friends and mentors who were invested in my well-being. I had an invaluable experience that will be with me for the rest of my life. I made friends that I will never forget and experience what it was like to really live in a different culture.

My year in Spain was hands down my best year of college. It is surely hard to beat spending 9 months in Southern Spain, traveling all around Europe, learning about new cultures, improving my Spanish language skills and meeting tons of amazing new people.
My Spanish host family welcomed me into their home and their lives; my host mother frequently invited me out to eat with her friends and I got to spend a lot of time with my 9 year old host sister and brother. Living with a family makes the experience so much better! They really helped me fully immerse into the culture and helped me improve my Spanish.
The classes at the center were interesting, and not too difficult. The professors are easy to talk to and have a lot of knowledge about what they teach and about Spain in general. Not having classes on Fridays gives students the chance to explore more of Spain!
Overall this was an amazing experience that I will truly never forget. I would do this all over again if I could, and would recommend this program and this city to anyone!

Seville is an amazing city, and Spanish Studies Abroad has a lot of experience with helping students deal with homesickness, culture shock, and pretty much any other issue that might present itself. Seville is a great city to immerse yourself in both the language and culture and SSA does a great job of making the transition a smooth one. The variety of program options make it easy to find one that will fit well with nearly any major, from business to pre-med and just about anything in between.

Because I was looking for a shorter program due to a summer job beginning in early May back at my home university, I stumbled upon the Spanish Studies Program with Spanish Studies Abroad in the beautiful city of Alicante, Spain. The city itself is located on the Mediterranean coast and has tons of charming, gorgeous little pueblos just a short train ride away, which allows for not only fulfilling day trips to exotic-looking locations, but also a day trip that fits right into your budget by using your tram pass that takes you to class daily and spending maybe a euro on another train. Your host mom even packs lunch and you can be back in time for dinner! If you don't want to travel, there's a beach just a hop, skip, and a jump from your home stay along with all the shopping you could imagine, bars, and wonderful cafes like my favorite, Canada Cupcake. I did not hear a single complaint about home stays from anyone in my program and I don't have a single one except I wish we lived closer and I could visit now! As for the ladies in the program, my only complaint is the same: that I miss them and wish we could visit! I have grown up in a very creative environment and am a performing arts major, so one difficult adjustment for me was the lack of opportunity to play instruments. These ladies looked high and low for a place where I could express myself musically and when their search came back fruitless, one of the wonderful ladies went so far as to offer her very own guitar to me! I was very impressed with that and though I declined, the sentiment was touching. My professors were equally concerned about our adjustment process and constantly checked in with us to make sure we were well-adjusted and enjoying our time abroad. One professor I had for most of the semester was named Santiago and he was by far the best professor I have ever had. He taught us new vocabulary to express ourselves better, only spoke in Spanish but made sure we understood every single word, and checked in with us one-on-one to discuss our plans for our vacations, weekend trips, and to hear about our adventures. Last but not least, I was lucky enough to have saved enough and lived frugally enough in Spain to be able to visit 14 countries! That included meeting family I had in Paris and Germany. I did most of this by train over our long spring break and backpacking through Europe is an experience I would not trade for anything. However, every weekend I did travel somewhere else as well. I visited the beautiful Barcelona, San Sebastian, Madrid, Mallorca, and Bilbao in Spain (along with the little nearby pueblos I mentioned earlier). My program also had free trips to the castle in Alicante, Granada, and Valencia! This program was truly a blessing to my life, gave me the opportunity to see a large portion of Europe, and gave me the support and confidence to travel (alone at times) to see what I wanted to see. I would highly recommend this program to anyone.

My pictures were too big to upload, but if you're interested, here is a link to a file in my Google drive with some pictures https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0ByMQbxPrHXO0WlpwWjk…

Studying abroad was the most challenging experiences in my life thus far, yet it was the most rewarding. There is not a day that goes by when I don't think about my trip. It was worth every penny! I look forward to the day I can return and learn more.

The city of Sevilla was beautiful and exciting every day. I loved going to school and the faculty at the center were very supportive and engaging. I really improved my Spanish as well!

Nevertheless, the actual program was rather underwhelming. I loved my host family, but it took over a month to switch housing arrangements when I wasn't pleased with my first one. Additionally, the staff did not create a very welcoming atmosphere. There was hardly any orientation and no group bonding between other students.

Overall, I loved my time abroad, but I don't think the program itself added much to my experience. Instead it was the awesome culture and host family I had.

I had the wonderful opportunity to live with a great host family and attend classes at the Uni with spectacular professors. The city of Alicante is very much alive and there is a beautiful beach, castle, plazas, as well as awesome shops and eateries that are in walking distance from any host home. In addition to all of the great local entertainment, it is very easy to travel from Alicante to other locations via the metro, trains, buses, and from the airport. The program included organized trips to cool places such as Granada and Valencia, and inexpensive additional trips to national parks, to go scuba diving, and to see Las Fallas, among other things. The CC-CS' awesome coordinators really make you feel welcome and at home; they make it easy to get involved on campus and in the community, as well as keep you safe while traveling. The classes are layered for different levels of language and integration, and include fun electives like Flamenco and gastronomia (for those who like to cook and eat high quality, culturally relevant foods and travel to where the best stuff is harvested, prepared, and consumed). I absolutely loved my experience, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their Spanish, travel, meet marvelous folk, eat super fresh foods, learn about the Spanish culture and history (among other cultures), and truly have a blast!

This was literally an unforgettable experience. I met a lot of friendly people from the same programs. I met a lot of local spanish people. The teachers were so helpful and encouraging.I WOULD RETURN!

Spending a semester in Seville became much more than academics. I was able to live like the locals and enjoy the famous annual Feria de Abril. This is an event that I could not fully understand until I actually experienced it. It was a lot of fun and I loved the fact that almost all of the women wore flamenco dresses.

Overall this program is very good with plenty of experience and people to help both in the USA and Seville. The office/school is centrally located, making it ideal for exploring an old, historically important city. Very good points include the school itself, the homestay, and cultural activities including travel. The professors are all native speakers from Spain and very dedicated to their work there. It's very important that you meet them halfway; you must understand that you're here to STUDY abroad and they'll help you as much as they can, but if you're not willing to try, why bother? They'll pick up on your attitude and you'll leave Seville without learning a thing if you don't care. Homework was substantially less than I was used to (this could be positive or negative, haha). The homestays are handled very carefully and I have yet to hear of anyone (again who actually TRIED to communicate and spend time with their family) having big problems. Me and my roommate will be in touch with our family for years to come, they are absolutely wonderful people. This leads to cultural stuff too, because your family can introduce you to great things in the city like art and restaurants. I cannot stress enough that if you want a truly rewarding learning experience you must live with a host family and at least ATTEMPT to communicate and spend time with them. You will be amazed at how much you'll learn! CC-CS provides numerous opportunities to see the city, from the mandatory trip to the Cathedral to the optional trips to various museums. Furthermore trips to places like Granada and Córdoba can be very informative and exciting. Travel in general is something that a lot of people look forward to doing while they live abroad, and CC-CS can help with that too from their personal travel agent to program-only trips to places like Morocco and Portugal (I highly recommend both of these!) so you can see the world and hang out with your program friends.
The administration itself needs lots of help being more communicative. We were not given our class schedules nor a firm schedule of events for the semester until we arrived in Seville. Meaning that any attempt to reserve hotels/flights for visiting family members or for your personal travel had to wait until practically the last minute... and anyone who knows anything about travel knows that reservations should be made as far in advance as possible to get good deals, that means this is a HUGE problem for the program overall because it ends up costing students and their families a lot of money over time. Furthermore communication about obligatory meetings, etc. would be very last minute ("Tomorrow is the meeting with X" oh really well I wish I had known that two days ago...) which can be difficult for students and host families alike. Miscommunication galore made for lots of problems.