Study abroad. When I first started attending orientations and tours and thinking about college, those two words sounded distant and kind of scary. Studying abroad seemed like a chore—something I was required to do to be a well-rounded, marketable college student, something associated with a bunch of cliché phrases like “broadening my horizons” and meeting language immersion requirements. As I started to look for an appropriate time/location to study in, it transformed from a requirement to a vacation opportunity. I was shopping around for the place with the best views, the place with the most history, the place that felt the most romantic, and of course the one that best fit my budget. Then, as my Google Countdown started to get into double digits, and then finally into single digits, the concept of studying abroad morphed into something alien, monstrous, and terrifying—I couldn’t think about it without a hard knot of anticipation, halfway between excitement and panic, forming in my gut. Study abroad started to mean frantic packing sessions late at night, it started to mean checklists and government documents and always, always time ticking away.
But now that I’m here, now that it has finally arrived, the words “study abroad” have come to mean so much more. Actually, they seem remarkably inadequate. How can those two words possibly capture the essence of what I am doing here? How can ANY words possibly describe it? Well, here in this blog, I am going to do my best to do this wonderful experience some justice with photos, observations, and anecdotes. I will try to let you into this wonderful new world of mine and I will try to take you along on this journey of language, culture, and experience.
So…now you’re probably wondering where exactly I am. I am living and studying for four months in the beautiful city of Granada, Spain. It’s a city in the southern region of the country (called Andalucía) and has a very unique geographic layout. You can access beautiful Mediterranean beaches on the Costa del Sol in an hour by bus, or you can take a bus into the mountains and visit some of the top ski resorts in the country. Yes, all in the same place. The city itself is a wonderful mix of the modern and the old. There are modern buildings, but every block or so a beautiful cathedral or convent will surprise you. The city also used to be the seat of the Islamic empire in Spain (before the Catholic monarchs, they reigned for 800 years in Spain), and the old Arabic neighborhood up in the hills overlooks the Islamic palace, the Alhambra (the number one tourist destination in Spain), which is a breathtaking castle that gracefully looks down on the city from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
I’m living in a homestay, with a woman named Encarna, her mother Carmen and their pet canary (his name is Pavarotti and he sings just as well as his namesake). I get my meals cooked for me and have my own beautiful room, as well as internet connection, which is a bit of a luxury here in Spain.
The third-party program that OSU works with and that is charge of my studies over here is called ISA (International Studies Abroad), and they have been absolutely wonderful. Their USA office was incredibly efficient and helpful up until my departure, and now that I’m here the program directors have become like friends and their office like a home. They are more than willing to help the students in whatever capacity needed, and I would recommend working with ISA to any student that wants to study abroad.
I am a double major in English and Spanish at Ohio State, so I am studying through the Universidad de Granada (University of Granada) in their Center for Modern Languages, which is where students from all over Europe come to work on their Spanish language. Our first month was all about intensive review—I took classes that reviewed Spanish speaking and grammar, and now that October has rolled around, I will begin to take the courses that will count for credit toward my Spanish major here at OSU. They include classes on anything from Spanish literature to the history of Spanish film. But the biggest language practice just comes through day-to-day interactions and immersion in the foreign culture.
That is the bare bones of why I am here and what I am doing here. I hope that throughout this blog I can continue to convey how amazing this opportunity is and how lucky I feel to have it. But most of all, I hope that you, the reader, also get something—anything—out of this, because I have already gotten so much out of it.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at OSU chapter.
