This program was fantastic!! CIEE does a great job helping involve you with the host community and provides ample opportunities to make local friends. They also do an amazing job with housing accommodations and with changes if ever necessary.

Seville is awesome. period. I am a spanish major so i took courses with spanish students in the local university in addition to courses with my program. I volunteered with a local high school teaching english - it was more like a cultural immersion experience to get the students to teach me about their culture by preparing and presenting on different topics. having a good level of spanish, i found it very easy to approach locals and make a lot of friends.. the excursions that ciee offered were all awesome opportunities to see and learn about surrounding cities. the guides were very intelligent and the locations were ones i wanted to visit regardless.

I didn't like the grading and the academics, they didn't give you room to improve just two exams.

I loved living in Sevilla because it is a city with a very traditional Spanish culture. I got to experience cultural customs with my host family and program such as Semana Santa and La Fera (a flamenco fair). You really did have to use your Spanish to get around in the city and that was really great for practice and fully immersing yourself in the culture.

The staff at CIEE were all very nice and welcoming. They were always open to help you with problems, but I didn't have any really so I didn't have much experience with them.

My program offered activities every week ranging from visits to museums and sites in Sevilla to day trips to even weekend trips to places such as Granada and Barcelona. The trips had a nice combination of organized activities and free time so the students didn't feel tied down. In my program, all the activities were conducted in Spanish and helped a lot with learning.

I lived in a homestay and I truly loved my family. I was so nervous to meet them, but they turned out to be the most welcoming, friendly people I have ever met. I lived in the center of town so I didn't use any transportation, I just walked about 10-15 minutes everywhere which I loved because I could go home during the day and eat with my host family and also get to know the streets more by walking through them.

The professors were usually very nice and the classes seemed to be easier than CU's classes, but that was fine with me because all my classes were in Spanish and I could not have excelled if they were much harder. The professors are a lot less structured than those in the U.S. and it could be frustrating with how much some of them would not follow the calendar on the syllabus.

I had to go to the walk in clinic twice for minor health issues and it was a clinic recommended by CIEE. The people there were very nice and patient as they didn't know English so I had to explain everything in Spanish.

Seville is a very safe city! I never felt scared walking around, except for a couple times late at night and that's not safe anywhere you are so I recommend walking with a friend home or taking a cab right to your door. It also depends on what part of the city you live in. I lived close to a lot of popular bars so that was nice because people were around on my street, but it also meant there were more drunk people.

I did not feel as "foreign" and out of place as I have felt in other countries I have visited. The people of Seville know a lot of study abroad students go there and usually aren't alarmed when they see an American walking around. It was hard to feel included with Spanish students, but that also has something to do with the language barrier. Whenever you did talk with Spanish students one on one or in small groups they were always super nice.

My Spanish has definitely improved more than it ever would have in a class at a university. I have learned even more about other people in the world and I think that helps with understand different people and where they come from. I am a lot more open because of my travels and I think this is really important for accepting and getting along with other cultures. I have also made so many future connections in Europe and all over the US.

You will have to adjust to a lifestyle where you feel a little bit more alone than you do back at CU. When you live with a host family, you can't invite people over to hang out so if you want to see someone, you have to text them and go somewhere. I definitely had to adjust to this and not being constantly surrounded by my friends.

This program is great for practicing your Spanish. All courses are completely in Spanish, which I was nervous for at first but it turned out to be so great. Sevilla is an amazing city with so much culture and so much to learn/do. CIEE has a lot of different events and activities to interact with locals and get the most out of your study abroad experience.

Courses were very interesting with teachers who were well-educated and invested in helping us learn. Sevilla was a great city to live in and the location where I was living was incredible- very central and close to everything I wanted to do. The program helped provide some interaction with locals but it was still hard to meet them in a way that stuck beyond the current activity. CIEE Sevilla planned a huge number of really cool excursions for free, way more than I was expecting. I was able to see all of the important cities plus a lot of cool pueblos in the south of Spain, and the CIEE guides who came with us were always well educated and gave us great information on the places we were going.

My courses with CIEE were absolutely amazing. I was able to take an economics course in Spanish with a local professor. He was the most interesting and passionate teacher I have ever had. I also took classes based on the local culture, and that was very important because Spain has a rich and intense culture. I wouldn't want to study anywhere than Sevilla. In the Spring, they have two festivals-Semana Santa and Feria. Both were the most amazing festivals I have ever witnessed. Semana Santa is centered around religion, and Feria is a big culture party. I had a ton of Spanish friends, and my host family was the nicest family. The excursions were good, we went to Granada, Barcelona, and Jerez. There were also smaller excursions I was able to do to smaller cities with CIEE.

All the staff were very accommodating and understood our perspective as study abroad students in a new country.

I did not communicate directly with the program director because I never had a need to, but the directors were definitely available if we needed them. I felt like I had plenty of support from the professors and other people working in the program.

Everyone was very helpful. If I ever had a problem they would respond right away.

There were many activities provided by CIEE and they were interesting and well planned.

I thought they did a good job with orientation, I liked how they split us into small groups based on where we lived and had a young Spanish person be our guide for the week of orientation. As mentioned earlier, the excursions were all great.

They were all great. On site orientations were awesome because I met so many people. Excursions were well thought out and planned.

I stayed in a home stay with a local woman. I loved it. I loved interacting with her every day and creating a strong friendship. I was able to practice my Spanish in a casual environment and learn about her perspectives. I walked to school each day and sometimes took the bus which was easy to use and maneuver.

I lived in a host family situation and I really loved them. I lived with a young couple and I feel like I got matched with the perfect family for me because independence was really important to me but also being able to have a good friendship/relationship with the host family. They were young enough that we could hang out together and really have fun. I lived in such a central location that within Sevilla I never had to use any transportation other than walking. Getting to school in the morning was a 10 minute walk to CIEE and maybe 20 minutes walking to the university. I also lived right by all the bars/restaurants/things to do so walking to everything was very easy for me.

I lived in a multi family homestay. I loved it. It was the perfect amount of independence and family-styleness that I needed. I walked 30 minutes from Triana every day to class. It was a nice walk.

I took courses both at CIEE and at the University. I enjoyed having a mix of both because at the university I was able to meet other abroad students in Sevilla in other programs. The courses were challenging due to the different language, but overall I enjoyed them and learned a lot.

I really enjoyed all of the courses I took, and feel like I learned a lot. The teachers really were interesting and cared a lot about our classes. In particular, I had Angel Quinta for 3 of my classes over the course of the semester and he is an incredible professor. I took one class at the university and really liked the professor there, and the rest of my classes were at the CIEE study center. Only real comment here is that I think the teachers assumed a lower level of Spanish than what I had and so some of the classes moved slower than I felt was necessary.

Everything was great. My courses were taught, and the professors were all locals. They knew everything about Spain and its culture. Spanish was hard to get used to, but after the first few weeks it was very easy to learn from.

I would recommend participating in the program offered by CIEE that connects local students to the abroad students. I also recommend taking time to sit at cafes and interact with the bartenders and waiters and take the time to practice your Spanish outside of the classroom.

I met a really nice group of Spanish people through the CIEE program and ended up hanging out with them on several occasions on my own. They were really friendly and nice but it was hard to keep up with them linguistically when I was the only American in a group. I would recommend that students try to have a mix of friendships with locals, some that are one-on-one language exchanges to help learn slang and that type of thing and some that are the larger group settings. I also dated a local for several months and that kind of relationship is a really good way to really improve your social Spanish skills (as opposed to academic Spanish).

I met a lot of people by going out of my comfort zone and talking to them. I ended up being friends with my orientation leader, the local starbucks barista...everyone! You make more friends by talking to them!

I luckily did not have any significant health issues while abroad, nor do I have any dietary restrictions. I felt overall like the food and lifestyle there was quite healthy.

Everything was fine. The food was hard getting used to but your body acclimates.

I felt very safe in Sevilla and in my homestay. My house mom made me feel safe by making sure all doors were locked and that only us had keys to the apartment. I recommend being wearing of your surroundings but overall Sevilla is a very safe city from my experiences.

I felt very safe where I lived in Sevilla. People there are out on the streets much later so even if I was walking back home alone late at night, there were enough people out that I felt very safe, even safer than I feel in Boulder. Sevilla is a relatively small city so I never even worried that much about pickpocketing or that type of thing.

Very safe. Just don't walk home alone very late.

Sevilla is a very inclusive community. They have accepted different sexual orientations for longer than the US which I did not realize before the program. There is not a great diversity of race, but from my experience there was no significant discrimination. Being an American was sometimes difficult because of the current political situation and certain stereotypes, but it was nothing I could not handle. I tried my best to act against those stereotypes and change certain perspectives.

I felt like everybody was very welcoming to me in Spain, although you definitely get a lot of looks when they can tell you are an American because of your accent. It comes out of curiosity rather than discrimination though so while it could get a bit annoying for everyone to comment on me being American, it was never in a way where I felt discriminated against.

I think this experience is something that will impact me for the rest of my life. My Spanish skills are significantly improved along with my skills to live in a country different than my own. I have increased my confidence in travel and will be more willing to take chances and live my life in the moment more. My time abroad allowed me to gain a wider perspective on different ways of life and how the United States does not necessarily have the best of everything or live the only "proper" way.

I think some of the long-term strengths I have gained from this experience are that it has helped me to feel comfortable in uncomfortable situations, and to be able to communicate effectively with people even when there's a language barrier. I think I've also become a much more outgoing person in general because I had to start over making friends from scratch. I also think the fact that sometimes being an American made me feel like an outsider or like I didn't belong was really helpful to my growth as an individual and understanding how hard it really is to feel like you belong in a place that has a different culture and language than your own, even when you speak the language quite well.

It opened my eyes to the world around me and got me out of my comfort zone. It truly changed how I see people.

I am proud that I took all my classes in Spanish. It was very intimidating at first, but all the instructors were encouraging and I significantly improved and gained a lot of confidence by the end of the semester.

I was invited to go to a relatively intimate birthday party for some locals I had recently met. The party was a little bit overwhelming because they had all been friends for a long time and had lots of anecdotes and slang that was hard for me to understand. However, I really enjoyed getting to see what a Spanish birthday party was like, and was proud of myself for getting out of my comfort zone and going to it.

We went to the Alhambra in Granada and the Mezquita in Cordoba. These are two things I learned in textbooks and they were amazing to see in real life.

I wish I had known a little more about the different types of home stays and more about the different courses offered by CIEE vs the University.

I think that I was very well-informed before my departure, everything else that in theory I would have like to have known were really just lessons that had to be learned through experience.