Visiting Mountain Tibidabo’s Barcelona outlook.

Author: Courtney Sakmar | Major: Journalism

This past semester I was lucky enough to finish my senior year in Barcelona, Spain. I chose this program as it allowed me to finish out my last college classes in a new and enriching environment. Most of the classes I took were for my marketing minor, as someone interested in international marketing being able to take these abroad gave me business advice from those who have had their professional careers in an environment other than the U.S. In international marketing I heard firsthand accounts of what it is like to try to launch products internationally and how outsiders perceive working with the U.S.

One of my classes, Sports Marketing, taught me about the differences between American and European sports and how important futbol, or known in America as soccer, is to the Spanish culture. There was a lot of pride for the Barca futbol team despite how they’ve been preforming lately, and I felt this reflected how much pride locals had for their Catalan culture as a whole.

My favorite class I took was Photography in Barcelona. I learned a lot about how to look at things from a new perspective. I had several assignments where I would have to go out and take photos of people and places in Barcelona. This allowed me to really take in the city and notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise. On one instance I was doing street photography and went to the park near my house. There I met a nice woman who was walking her dogs and let me take pictures. She encouraged my Spanish and helped me feel more comfortable talking to locals.

My class sizes were very small due to the pandemic. I had my classes in a student center in the heart of the city with other Americans from all over the U.S. The entire center only had 40 students and my largest class was still under 10 students. This small class size was very different than what I was used to at the University of Arkansas but the small environment allowed everyone to get fairly close and for the classes to be very geared towards whatever the students wanted. It was interesting to compare my college experience at a large SEC school to my new friends who went to school in California and New York.

Barcelona was my first time ever living outside of the suburbs and in the heart of a big city, so I was adjusting not just to new culture but also to a living in a big city. While I occasionally missed being able to go on drives, I loved the public transportation system. There was both a metro and a train system, and while the train was often late and annoying, the underground metro was very reliable and fast. I got used to walking everywhere in any weather and now that I am back in the U.S. I have found I miss it.

While I was in Europe, I got to see a lot of amazing art and architecture from the famous Gaudi architecture of Spain like La Sagrada Familia, to renowned world sites like the Eiffel tower and the Venice cannels. I got firsthand experience in things I had, previously, only ever seen on TV. I would highly recommend asking any friends you make at your university or flat that aren’t from the country you’re staying in what their favorite places are in their home city. Some of the coolest places we saw were recommended by our friends who were locals. One in particular was a museum in Amsterdam called the NXT museum. While it wasn’t on any of the tourists’ sites, it was a really neat experimental art museum about how technology affects our daily lives. It was recommended by a student I met that was from Amsterdam but studying in Spain.

For those who are looking to study abroad, I would 100 percent recommend Barcelona! However, if your main goal is to learn Spanish I would look elsewhere in Spain like Madrid as I was surprised by how frequently Catalan, the local language, was preferred over Spanish. While you will definitely improve your Spanish in Barcelona as I did, many of the words I picked up ended up being Catalan. I was surprised by how little English was spoken and often ran into museums and restaurants where there were no English options. Many public signs would also only be displayed in Catalan. However, I found the Catalan culture and history to be very interesting and found the lack of English to be a fun challenge. I would defiantly recommend giving Barcelona a visit!