Exchange Program from Barcelona to California

A Friend of mine just came back from an exchange program in California. It's really common in BES La Salle to study a semester or two aboard in basically wherever you want! Everyone always come back with crazy stories and all one of a kind..! Let's see what Kristian got out of from the States. My experience at Saint Mary's College of California was a very rewarding one. At first I thought: I'm gonna go there, have some fun, travel some, make some friends, learn some about sport management. But no: I had A LOT of fun, traveled A LOT, made A LOT of friends, and learned A LOT about sport management. It was interesting to me how different college lifestyle was from what I've experienced in other schools. At SMC all students felt like they were a part of a big family, they identified with the university. Everybody was wearing school t-shirts and sweaters, everybody went to cheer for the sports games, and almost everybody lived on the campus. Together with a lot of campus activities and little field trips, this cohesion was only being enhanced. The one thing that made this easier was the location of the campus. Placed in a rich residential area surrounded by hills and trees, it wasn't always easy to get outside campus unless you had a car (they were working on improving the bus system though). But at the same time there was no real need to. Everything was there for you on the campus. You had amazing sports facilities, a shop, a post office, an ATM, a library, a church, etc. And the campus and its surroundings were just astonishing (if you're a bit of a nature-enjoyer, that is). The classes were usually in small groups and mainly theoretical (compared to the more practical approach we are used to at BES La Salle), and the teachers were friendly and well qualified. The amount of work per class was not too different from what we're used to, but the fact that you can only take 4 subjects did make it less stressful. Looking in retrospect I'm very grateful for having been given the chance to live such a wonderful experience and I would recommend it to any fellow student without hesitation.

- Kristian Dobrev