CIEE College Study Abroad in Seville, Spain

My semester in Sevilla was one of the best experiences of my life! When I left the U.S., I was nervous and anxious about living so far out of my comfort zone. However, CIEE offered so much support and gave me opportunities to go beyond my comfort zone and truly experience Spanish culture. I'm most grateful to CIEE for the opportunity to live with a host family. I absolutely LOVE my host family! They took me to extended family gatherings and day trips, we ate dinner together every night, and they went out of their way to make sure I had an enriching cultural experience. Some of my favorite memories are going to Semana Santa, Feria, and a horse show with my amazing host family. We're still in touch, and I'm going back to visit them in a couple months!

CIEE also hosted lots of day trips and events to make sure we had the chance to see other parts of Spain (and Morocco!). The program also connected me to an "intercambio" (language exchange partner.) My intercambio and I quickly became friends and would spend time walking around El Centro (city center) in Sevilla, eyeing which bakery we wanted to visit that day.

Overall, I gained confidence and stronger Spanish skills, expanded my worldview, and most importantly, found a second family. Gracias, CIEE!

I have loved participating in the Business & Society Program at CIEE in Seville. Not only do I get the opportunity to improve my Spanish speaking abilities with courses entirely in Spanish, but I also am provided with a plethora of resources to help me succeed. I chose CIEE because my courses transfer directly to my university as business school requirements and because everyone who has gone on the CIEE program before me absolutely loved their experience. CIEE also has detailed schedules with loads of activities and trips so that you are never bored. I love the staff and my homestay is perfect. Highly recommend.

I mean, it was incredible. Absolutely amazing. I knew I wanted to study in Spain because I wanted to practice my Spanish, but I also wanted to be able to travel through Europe. I went abroad during my fourth year (out of 5) of college, and hadn't really taken many Spanish courses since high school. After my time in Seville, living with a host family and taking classes in Spanish, I can now put "Spanish (Conversational fluency)" on my resume without it feeling like a lie.

The host family I was paired up with was incredible, and we're still in touch and I love them dearly. And the support given by CIEE was so incredibly helpful. When it came to choosing classes, traveling around Europe, or general in-class support, the staff and professors went above and beyond to make sure all my questions were answered. I couldn't imagine a better group of people to studied under/with. The program director even began to help me search for opportunities to stay in Spain another semester after I mentioned to him I was thinking about it! They all really truly cared about the students and what they achieved, especially in the smaller CNMJ program.

The program also brought us on multiple excursions (Córdoba, Cádiz, Morocco...) and showed us around the cities in a fun and interesting way. And they struck the perfect balance between watching us/giving us support and also letting us explore the cities on our own.

Oh, and DUH I made some of the best friends of my life. I'm still in contact with some of the people from my program, and I'm actually living with one friend now! CIEE really knew how to establish a community.

I loved my time in Seville so much, and I really hope this review does a good job capturing that. I loved my time in Spain so much, that I'm actually living here again now that I've graduated from college! I'm so grateful for the opportunity CIEE gave me to learn about myself and my obsessive passion for travel and living abroad (sorry, mom!)

I spent a whole academic year in Seville through CIEE's Liberal Arts program and leaving was not easy. Seville is such a prime location to study abroad in if you're looking for language immersion and culture. I really enjoyed the classes I took at the CIEE study center because all of them involved outside of the classroom learning and getting to know the city in different ways. In the cultural history course I took, we would spend the first half of the class in our classroom learning about a topic and then the second half walking around the city seeing what we had learned, for example we were learning about the Roman empire and right around the corner from our study center there were still Roman columns standing. One of my favorite things about Seville was that so much of the Muslim, Jewish, and Catholic structures from the past centuries still remain. You can get lost in the city's narrow streets or climb the Giralda to check out the view or do like the locals do and hang out along the river for hours or go for a beautiful run along Parque Maria Luisa! The Sevillanos are also a big part of what makes Seville so appealing. Their way of living, their passion for their art and dance, and how friendly they are made it easy to always want to be surrounded by them. Overall, every one's experience abroad is unique and it's what you make it but the CIEE Liberal Arts program definitely kept me interested in the courses and I had so much valuable information that even my local friends didn't know about their city! The staff at the study center was also very supportive and made me feel comfortable as well as helped me make local friends! I'd go on a CIEE program again because they really care about the individual student's experience and have so many great excursions and activities available for the students!

I had studied Spanish for 8 years prior to my semester in Seville, Spain with CIEE's Communications, New Media & Journalism program. As a communications major, this program provided me with the best of both worlds--a way to combine my passion for storytelling with the goal of improving my fluency abroad. As a senior in my last semester of college, I'm looking toward the future and am feeling a strong draw to return to Spain. CIEE both supported and challenged me during a semester abroad, and from those moments of personal growth and pure bliss I feel confident in my decision to return for an extended stay post-grad.

The CNMJ professors are all about engaged learning. This is not a program where you'll coast through classes, but rather one where you'll create things with your peers to add to your portfolio. I interviewed locals and refugees for a bilingual magazine. I hit the streets to record podcasts on flamenco culture in Andalusia. I took an art course that toured me around Seville, taking me to the sites where the history actually occurred. The CNMJ program made sure that learning wasn't confined to the 4 walls of a classroom; a true experience abroad was built on cultural immersion. I am proud of the work that I completed while abroad, and it definitely has enhanced my professional portfolio when seeking internships and jobs back home in the states.

With the CNMJ program, we also went on trips to other cities and countries. There were only 33 people in the group, which made it easy to get to know new friends. We went to the port city of Cádiz for a day trip, and also spent a few days in Morocco where we were toured around by host families. The professors are so, so fun and very passionate about their jobs, which I appreciated.

The only downside to my CNMJ experience was with my host family. I ended up having to switch families, which was uncomfortable, but the CIEE staff made sure to coach me through the process. My second homestay was better, but it definitely was a more difficult transition abroad having to up and move again only a few weeks into the semester.

I would highly recommend this program to any communications major who is interested in an abroad experience in a Spanish speaking country. Seville is the perfect city for study abroad--I felt very safe, it's affordable, rich in history and a beautiful location. I'll forever cherish the memories I made during my semester abroad with CIEE CNMJ, and I look forward to returning to Spain soon.

I won a scholarship to study in Sevilla with CIEE during summer 2015, and was so impressed with the program/in love with the city that I ended up returning for a whole semester. The entire experience was incredible and I could write forever about it:
There is the opportunity to take classes at the local universities (either with fellow foreign students or direct-enrollment with actual Spanish students); the orientation period is very useful in helping you get settled into the life of the city; there are loads of free events/site visits/excursions/trips all organized by CIEE; the staff (both professors as well as the coordinators/director) are all very friendly, accessible, and caring; you have the opportunity to volunteer, and meet Spanish students; the city itself is packed with beauty and culture. Sevilla is rich with history, and there is always something new to learn. There's always something to do- seriously, it's impossible to be bored here- and you can get a student discount on just about anything, from museum visits to bus/train fare. There are budget airline flights all over Europe, including popular destinations like London, Paris, Milan, etc. and a public bus to the airport runs every half hour for 4 euros, which is much cheaper than the 30+ euro that a taxi would cost. The nightlife is fantastic, but the city is also calm during the mid-afternoon (aka the siesta hours) and there are a million small cafés to choose from, whether you're looking for coffee or tapas or a study spot or somewhere to grab drinks with friends.
My experience with CIEE has been so positive that it actually ended up helping me figure out what I want to do with my life- I am hoping to work in the international education/study abroad sector someday, and I hope to help other American students receive the same impactful experience that I have had.

I spent the Fall semester of my junior year of undergrad in Seville, Spain as a member of the Communication, New Media, Journalism program. I chose to go to Seville because this program existed and it appealed to my major. To say I was satisfied with my academic and social experience in Seville would be an understatement. Not only did CNMJ push me academically in a way I had not anticipated, CIEE coordinated events and fostered friendships with peers and professors that will be valuable for the rest of my life. The CNMJ program taught me how to be a better journalist and creator of media. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, to set up interviews with Spaniards in a new language, and to tell the stories of the city. Aside from continuing to build a portfolio for myself and my future, I learned about this industry from a different cultural perspective with field trips and guest speakers. The staff and faculty of CNMJ are incredibly qualified and experienced in the communications field and have so much to teach and offer young minds. One of the biggest benefits was the full Spanish immersion this program offers, as all classes are in Spanish and your skills in both Spanish and Journalism are constantly growing. CNMJ taught me academically, but it also taught me about myself and helped me grow as an individual in ways I am very thankful.

I absolutely loved studying abroad with CIEE Seville: Communications, New Media and Journalism (CNMJ). This program is much smaller than the general Liberal Arts one, which means you really get to know the other students -- I made some really close friends while studying abroad. I was lucky enough to be in Sevilla for the whole school year (2014-15) and could not be more grateful to the CNMJ program for such a life-changing experience.

One of the highlights of this program that makes it stand out from others is the trip to Morocco. In the middle of the semester, the CNMJ staff lead a FREE trip to several cities in Morocco with just the CNMJ students. You stay with host families in the beautiful city of Chefchaouen, giving you the opportunity to be completely immersed in the culture, eat authentic homemade Moroccan food (which is DELICIOUS), build a relationship with a specific family and learn a ton about life there. This was a truly unique experience for which I am incredibly grateful. I will never forget riding the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar as Oscar, the amazing CNMJ Program Director, tells us, "See that land across the water? That's Africa."

CNMJ gave me some great opportunities to expand my communications knowledge and experience. Through Oscar's class, Magazine Reporting and Writing, students write articles for, take photographs for and design a high-quality magazine that is distributed throughout CIEE and various locations in downtown Sevilla. Carlos' class, New Media and Audiovisual Workshop, introduced me to the world of videography and gave me video editing skills that I did not previously have.

Marina's class, Social Justice, Action and Media, was one of the best classes I have ever taken in my life. Not only did we learn about crucial topics centering on human rights, but Marina is an amazing professor and an all-around wonderful person. She cares deeply about each and every one of her students and is interested in their lives -- and, in turn, her students care a lot about her.

I highly recommend this program to anyone who is interested in developing their writing/media/general communications skills through high-quality, in-depth classes with small class sizes and wonderful, knowledgeable professors. I am still in touch with the program staff and hope to return to Sevilla in the near future. CIEE is great in general, but I recommend CNMJ in particular for a more intimate and personalized study abroad experience.