ALBA: US accredited Study Abroad in Barcelona
Location
Spain: Barcelona
Description
The following areas of study - excepting language - are all upper-division level and are taught in English as 3 credits each for semester school programs and as 5 credit courses for quarter school programs. However, language courses may be offered as 4 and 6 credit courses, respectively. Upper-division Spanish credits may be available to some students. Students normally take three classes: language (not required, but strongly encouraged) and two electives. Students may take up to a total of four classes with prior approval.
During summer term students typically take two intensive courses from the last week in June through the first three weeks in July.
ALBA main areas of study include, but are not limited to:
* Economics
* Political Science
* History
* Geography, Urban Planning and Sociology
* Arts and Architecture (including Film and Literature, Media Studies & others)
* Spanish Language
* Teacher Training (summer intensives June-July)
Depending on demand any of these courses may be offered in any particular term, including courses and areas of study not regularly offered and we encourage students to enquire.
All ALBA courses are transcripted through Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, and all course syllabuses are available upon request.
Highlights
Barcelona is an excellent choice as a study-abroad destination. It is not only one of Europe's larger cities (fairly compact in area but with a population of over five million) right on the Mediterranean Sea in the Northeast corner of Spain, only 100 miles south of the border with France. Like many other European cities, it has a very long and interesting history which literally surrounds you in your day to day experience there. For example, Barcelona's Gothic Quarter near the beautifully redeveloped harbor, was home to Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans and is the largest surviving medieval quarter in Europe. Surrounding the old city is l'Eixample, a grid of streets and avenues reflecting the design of Hausmann, the famous planner of the boulevards of Paris, fronted by 19th-century buildings with imposing facades (and interiors). In fact, at the end of that century and into the early decades of the twentieth, there was an outpouring of art and architecture still found in the museums of Picasso and Miro and the fantastic buildings of Antoni Gaudi, among many others. Even more recently, following the 1992 Summer Olympics the city has seen a resurgence of this earlier dynamism, with sidewalks full of people and lined with cafes and shops, and an abundance of entertainments and cultural events.
* Barcelona: environs
Alternatively, if your tastes run toward rural towns and countryside, and/or high mountains and steep coastlines, all of these are within an hour or two from Barcelona, including the ancient Roman cities of Tarragona and Girona, Montserrat, the Pyrenees mountains, the Dali Museum in Figueres and the nearby coastal towns and beaches of the Costa Brava.