Студенты Iowa State прошли шестинедельную программу погружения в культуру Валенсии

The Valencia trip is a 6-week immersive program for students of all majors (and students of all Spanish levels) that provides a shorter trip to explore Spain’s culture.  “I think it is an excellent time, and you should go,” Ryder Souder, a senior in mechanical engineering who was on the Valencia trip this past summer, said.  Despite the program being set in a non-English-speaking city, Souder, who took the beginner Spanish course, said, “I didn’t have any particular fears [about the language barrier]. I was confident that there were resources for me.”  Souder said his roommate was fluent in Spanish, and that Google Translate was available when he needed it. He also said that everything is pretty similar in the Western world and that he could find almost anything without having to read. To those looking to improve their Spanish, Valencia has lots of opportunities for students to practice in real-life scenarios. Whether through the Valencia Language Exchange, a program created for people in Valencia to meet, connect and learn different languages through interaction and conversations.  Ellie Chock, a junior in construction engineering, got the opportunity to go on a hiking trip to Montanejos through the exchange program with some of the Iowa State students as well as other members of the Valencia community.  The Valencia program offers students the opportunity to travel on the weekend, through different parts of Spain, Europe and other nearby parts of the world.  “[Traveling] at first was very intimidating. But I think after a while you kind of get the hang of public transportation in general,” Chock said. Valencia, being the third largest city in Spain, is full of public transportation options. Students would take the metro and buses to school, a trip students had down within the first week of classes and walk throughout the city center and neighborhoods.  At school, students were required to take at least one Spanish class, and also had the option to take some courses in English like psychology, biology, differential equations and others.  Chock took differential equations during the five weeks of classes. Originally, she said the students in the class were super worried about how they were going to finish a whole semester of work in five weeks.  “We went into it with easy equations, learning the concepts and then [our professor] slowly added on to it, and suddenly we learned the whole thing,” Chock said. While learning in classes is a vital part of the trip, students learn a lot about non-classroom topics just through living abroad for a little bit of time. “You are not an outsider looking in. You are coming in, and you get to burst the bubble,” Julie Wilhelm, a director of the Valencia trip, said. Through living with a host family and living a “Spain life” for a few weeks, Wilhelm said students “get out of their culture and see that things are different. And it helps you appreciate what you have at home.”  “My host mom was always open and liked sharing her culture, so we would be able to ask her questions, and she was always open to answering them,” Jasmine Reyes Cosmen, a senior in genetics, said.  Reyes-Cosmen also got the opportunity to work an internship while in Valencia. While the experience took up a lot of time, around eighty hours of work in six weeks, she said, “The internship helped a lot. I did know Spanish before, but there was medical terminology that I was able to learn while being there.” With only six weeks in Spain, students make the most of their time. They visited the beach in Valencia, attended dance lessons on Thursdays through the Valencia Language Exchange, traveled through Europe and, of course, learned.  The Valencia Summer on the Mediterranean program was made for people of all Spanish levels who want the opportunity to experience the culture in Spain, all while checking some credits off of their academic plan.  For more information on the ISU on the Mediterranean: Summer in Valencia, Spain study abroad, visit this link.