My experience with Abbey Road Programs in Barcelona

I was expecting a lot from the program, but it went above and beyond my expectations. I have always wanted to go to Barcelona. I love the fact that it’s a bigger city and there are a lot of beaches. I wanted to be somewhere where everyone spoke Spanish. The only downside of Barcelona was that they spoke Catalan, which is their version of Spanish, but everyone knows regular Spanish so it ended up working out just fine. I [also] chose the Barcelona program because I also wanted a pre-college experience over a homestay.

For me personally, I was going to be more comfortable living in a residence with other students than living with a family I didn’t know. By the end of the program I wanted to be able to have conversations completely Spanish, no Spanglish and I really did accomplish this. I was able to communicate with the locals and the counselors. The Spanish classes that I took were really helpful because they weren’t your typical Spanish classroom classes. The class took your learning into the real world of Spain. We were able to go out and apply what we were learning and I really appreciated that over a regular classroom setting. I also wanted to be able to manage myself as I would in college like budgeting my expenses. I wanted to be able to provide for myself.
The residence was perfect for what we were dealing with. The kitchen was really nice. There was even a bathroom in my room! I really appreciated having my own space and that’s another reason I chose this program. I’ve never lived in a dorm before, but when I showed my parents where I was living they told me it was the nicest dorm I would ever get to experience so I felt lucky. The location was good. It was close to two metro stations and there was a taxi station just down the road. I really liked the food! I ended up having a really big appreciation for Spanish food by the end of the program. I’m not a seafood person and by the end of the program, I ended up loving seafood. I think the staff took us to the right places to have lunch and dinner. When we had to find food for ourselves we were able to very easily. I also like how we got to cook for ourselves. I learned how to cook authentic Spanish cuisine.

I loved all the staff on my program. They were all so nice and they liked to have fun with us and be safe. They taught us a lot and I really appreciated that. They were all wonderful. I think my instructors are obviously a little different than the instructors I have back home. They really took our learning outside the classroom and into the real world of Barcelona where I learned show much more compared to traditional teaching methods.