I went on the Spain Study Abroad Program sponsored by the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. It was established in 1971. The University of Illinois and the University of California send a group of students each year to the University of Barcelona. This year there were approximately 90 students who went, 15 of which were from the University of Illinois. The resident director this year was Dr. John Wilcox, a faculty member of the University of Illinois. There was also a graduate student from the University of California who worked in the program's office to assist students. Every two years, this situation will switch and the University of Illinois will send a graduate student assistant and the University of California will supply a program director. In addition to these two people, there is also a program manager who is from Barcelona, Pilar Ocaņa, who is also available to help students with whatever they may need. The staff is both very knowledgeable and very accessible, two things which help this program run very smoothly. This program includes a Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey, as well as a variety of excursions organized by the staff, all of which I would highly recommend. See the pictures page for more details on the excursions. You can find the official program web page here: http://www.sip.uiuc.edu/barcelona/index.htm.
The University I attended was the University
of Barcelona. My classes were at the downtown campus, home to the departments of
Philology and Math (which includes some CS/CompE classes). This is also the campus
where the programs specially designed classes for the California and Illinois
students take place and the location of the programs office. Students are free to
take basically any class in the university on any campus. I never took any classes
at the other campuses, but I occasionally had to go to one of the others to talk to
a professor or visit a library and they are easily reached by metro or buses.
The first four weeks
in Barcelona, the program organizes a mandatory Intensive Language Program. This,
for us, consisted of five different subjects every day for four days per week.
The subjects we studied in the ILP were Spanish Culture, Spanish Grammar, Spanish
Conversation, Spanish Composition, and Catalan.
The University of Barcelona, just like the city, is bilingual. What this means is that classes could be in Spanish, Catalan or a combination of both. Students are free to express themselves in either of the 2 languages (as long as it's not a Spanish/Catalan language class). This was a little bit intimidating at first, not knowing which language to expect a class to be in or having a lecture in one language and a discussion section in another one, but it turned out not to be too big of a problem. Teachers seem to be very understanding of foreign students. While I would not recommend you ask a teacher to change the language of instruction of a class, it is okay to ask questions in Spanish even if the teacher is speaking Catalan and he or she will generally answer in the language that a question is asked. Professors generally won't go out of their way to help students, but if you ask for help, they are normally are willing to give it. Most students are more than willing to lend you their notes if the teacher was talking too fast or they can tell you what the teacher said if you didn't quite catch it. I would encourage you to be sure to find a good lab partner if you have any labs because this was one of the best ways to meet new people since you can't really talk and interact with other students very much in lectures.
In case you're curious, here's a list of the classes I took and their languages of
instruction:
1st Semester
Elements de programaciķ - Catalan
Estructura de dades - Catalan
Estructura de computadors - Spanish lecture, everything else Catalan
The Current Sociolinguistic Situation of Catalonia: Conflict and Compromise - English
2nd Semester
Matemātica Discreta - Spanish discussion, everything else in Catalan
Metodologia i tecnologia de la programaciķ - Catalan lab, everything else in Spanish
Espaņol en los Estados Unidos - Spanish
Ensenyament de l'anglčs com a llengua estrangera - English
Our first month in Barcelona we had housing provided for us in a student residence. However, after this first month, we had to look for our own housing. We were provided with a list of names and phone numbers as a starting point, but we could use any other resources available to us as well. I ended up not using the housing list because the first weekend I was there, I went to church and the pastor asked me if I was looking for housing. I said I was and he lent me a room in his house with his family for the year. I was very fortunate and got along with the family really well. It was not uncommon for people to change housing a number of times throughout the year in search of better situations.
My last month in Barcelona I worked in an elementary school teaching English to a group of third grade students. The school that runs this program always asks Pilar to send out an e-mail informing students of this job opportunity, which is how I heard about it. The job was a paid position and involved about 4 and a half hours per day of work and included lunch. The school has drafted students from the California-Illinois program for the past few years and plans to continue to do so in the future.