Search Results for: valencia

2020 Spring, Semester

Anthony Vinson: Post 2

Anthony Vinson UVA in Valencia Valencia, Spain Spring 2020 Three weeks later, I feel fully adjusted to Spain. I realized how lucky I am to have a host mother who truly enjoys my company and loves to enhance my Spanish. I have made friends on the trip who are less fortunate and fell victim to unloving host mother that serves cold food and had set strict rules to follow in the house. My host mother cooks hot meals and sends me to school with buffalo wings, fresh cooked potatoes, and fruit for a delicious snack. When I arrive home after […]

2020 Spring, Semester

Anthony Vinson: Post 1

Anthony Vinson UVA in Vaelncia Valencia, Spain Spring 2020 It has been one week since I left the U.S. to embark on a journey to Valencia, Spain; here, I will be studying with the University of Virginia. Since this is my third time studying abroad, I was not nervous to be in a foreign country for an extended period of time; instead, I was excited. After landing in Valencia, and running on four hours of sleep, my host sister picked me up from the local soccer stadium, la Mestalla. She immediately started speaking Spanish and I quickly flipped the switch […]

2019 Fall, Academic Year

Thomas Salamon: Post 3

Thomas Salamon London School of Economics & Political Science London, England Fall 2019 Thankfully, for me, the UK is an English-speaking country. That’s not to say that I would be uncomfortable had I studied somewhere I needed to learn the language; after all, I did fine in Germany two summers ago. I can say that learning advanced topics in mathematics and finance would be a lot more difficult if I had to learn a language as well. The classwork is pretty demanding, and mostly is taught in a way that you need to get the foundation yourself and use the […]

2018 Summer, May Term

Ryan Tomlin: Post 3

Ryan Tomlin H-SC May Term Abroad Alcalá de Henares, Spain Summer 2018 Since the last time I blogged, I have made a lot of progress with the language. I speak as frequently as possible with my host brother and mother because I learn the most from them. I have gotten to the point where I don’t have to think about what I am going to say before I speak. I find myself responding to them much quicker, without a delay, because I have been exposed to the language for so long. It feels much more natural than in the beginning. […]

2017 Fall

Shemar Blakeney: Post 1

Shemar Blakeney Semester at Sea Fall 2017 I chose to participate in the Semester at Sea Program because I will be able to travel to multiple countries instead of just one. Even though I will not be able to immerse myself as deeply as other study abroad programs, I have the opportunity to go experience a lot of different cultures. I am extremely excited to visit South Africa and Japan; however, I am looking forward to traveling to all of the countries. I want to put meaning and faces to all of the places I have read and learned about […]

May Term

Winner of the VFIC Experiential Learning Scholarship

Jack Dawson Spain 2016 During my airplane flight to Spain for the Hampden-Sydney May Term, I was a little apprehensive because I had never studied abroad. I knew Spanish at a decent level, but was concerned I would not be able to converse with my instructors or my host family enough to communicate properly. This was the first trip I had taken where I had to manage getting back and forth to school, handling my own problems (in a foreign language) and exploring a country and its cities on my own (there were some group activities). Since Spanish was the […]

2016 Summer, May Term

Nick Browning: Post 3

Nick Browning H-SC May Term  Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Finally Getting Accustomed Classes this week have been more interesting in the sense that we’re finally being able to see how Spain’s history is affecting life today. Most of the issues that Spanish people are dealing with are due to a combination of medieval history and the struggles that the country faced over the last one hundred years. For nearly forty years, from 1939-1975, Spain was ruled by the dictator Francisco Franco. I’m not going to go into all the details of his reign, but just know that some of […]

2016 Summer

Nick Browning: Post 2

Nick Browning H-SC May Term Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Work Hard, Play Hard Our second week in Alcalá was a little less exciting than last week, but that’s because we had to do all of our classwork in the first half of the week, so that we could enjoy a vacation during the second half of the week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were each days full of six hours’ worth of class. For us, that meant covering Spanish history from the medieval times until the early 1900’s. This completed our crash course of 2,500 years of Spanish history that […]

Academic Year, Semester

William Imeson (April)

Somehow, this semester is finally coming to a close. I have only ten days left in Spain and I will soon be taking my final exams and packing up all of my things. I must say, back in January it certainly seemed like this day would never come. Although the end of a semester always comes abruptly, this study abroad experience has certainly amplified the feeling. It was seemingly just yesterday that I was stumbling around this Spanish apartment and trying to figure my way around a foreign city. As far as expectations go, I tried to limit mine so […]

Semester

William Duncan (Barcelona, Jan. 23)

While choosing to attend Hampden-Sydney College was a difficult decision to make, the decision to determine my study abroad location to be Barcelona, Spain proved to be oven more challenging. As I don’t know what I want to do after college, I have been set on studying abroad for some time now. I’m biased towards warmer weather, so I knew I wanted to be somewhere close to water and in a warm climate. I had never been out of the country before and I knew I wanted to see Europe, but I was unsure where I wanted to spend the […]