Annual Program Review CIEE Study Center at the Escola

							Annual Program Review
CIEE Study Center at the Escola Superior de Comerç Internacional (ESCI)
Barcelona, Spain
Summer Program
2005

CIEE Program Director: Catharine Scruggs, cscruggs@ciee.org
CIEE Resident Director: Dr. Antonia Ferriol
CIEE Academic Consortium Board Program Evaluation: www.ciee.org
CIEE Academic Consortium Board Monitor: Dr. Kathleen Sideli, Indiana University

Each summer, program directors write a Study Center Review for each CIEE Study Center
program commenting on the previous academic year. The program director writes the review
based on input from the CIEE Academic Consortium Board members, resident directors, sending
institutions, and student evaluations. Each report is made public on the CIEE website at
www.ciee.org.

Program Goals
The goal of the program is to allow students to complete a course in a business-related field at a
well-respected Barcelona business school, in either Spanish or English, while at the same time
beginning or improving their Spanish skills.

The goals were achieved this summer. For next year the goals will be expanded to correspond to
the addition of CIEE culture courses as an alternative to the business course.

Academic Program
The CIEE Barcelona summer program ran for the first time in summer 2005.

Three levels of language were offered: Beginning (3 students), Intermediate (4) and Advanced (4).
One student was exempt from the language requirement. All language class professors had
experience teaching CIEE’s semester language classes. Students seemed generally satisfied with
their placements, evaluated professors well (although two of the classes suffered from having to
change professors in the middle of the program), but complained that the level of the classes was
too low and slow. Although the level of the classes was raised a level above what they were
supposed to be based on the results of the placement test, some of the students said that the
classes were not sufficiently challenging. The Resident Director and language coordinator believe
that part of the problem is that while students have already covered certain grammar concepts in
the past, but are not using them in the correct context, which is exactly what students are
encouraged and trained to do in these classes. In order to raise the level of the classes
appropriately for next year, a new text will be used and the content of each class will be broadened.
The placement process will be altered slightly to place more emphasis on written production.

Registering students at ESCI was a smooth process. The RD simply emailed the students
choices to the ESCI Course Coordinator. The only problem was that some classes had to be
cancelled due to lower than expected enrollment at ESCI of non-CIEE students.

Students had the choice of International Marketing (taught in Spanish) and European Regional
Economics (taught in English). All courses were open to CIEE and other students.




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European Regional Economics (5 students)
Only CIEE students were enrolled in this class. The five students, asked if they would recommend
the class to future CIEE students, gave a mixed answer. Two students complained that this class
was not an economics class, but focused more on history and the EU. Two students said that
discussions were disorganized and random, and the class had no direction. Most agreed that the
paper had little to do with the class contents.

International Marketing (8 students)
CIEE students were in class with six other international students, mostly from Mexico. The
professor also teaches CIEE’s semester International Marketing class. All students said that they
would recommend the class to future CIEE students. Students evaluated the professor and the
class highly. Only a few commented that the workload was excessive (too many projects), too
rigorous for four weeks of class and the syllabus comprehended too much information. One
student was afraid that the grades may not accurately represent his comprehension of the
material.

In general, students recommend that the business classes last six weeks instead of four, because
meeting time for classes (2.5 hours) is too long for a business class. While the classes are
organized by ESCI, CIEE will discuss the idea of extending them in planning future summer
courses.

The classes were fairly demanding in the amount of outside resources required to complete the
assignments, but having to look for these resources outside the university was too much for some
participants. One student complained that they should have had better access to resources: being
able to check out books at UPF and use computers there. Students could use the UPF library but
could not check out books. Students had access to computers at ESCI and given the size of the
summer enrollment, these were always available. No other students complained about library and
Internet resources.

The mandatory business field trip to the printing company was commented on negatively by
several students. It will not be repeated next year for the business students, but substituted with
another company visit.

Tutoring was recommended for one student to provide extra support in her language class. She
asked about the possibility of changing to a lower level but according to the language placement
test, it would have been too basic for her. She stayed in the original class and started meeting with
the Spanish language tutor and reported that the tutoring sessions were very helpful and that she
was happy about her progress.

Non-academic Features

Orientation
The summer orientation went quite smoothly. The students were extremely cooperative and
punctual. One student had a problem with lost luggage, but she was quite patient throughout the
time it took the airline to deliver her suitcases to CIEE’s office.

On the first day, two orientation sessions were held in Hotel Balmes (Welcome Meeting and
Staying Safe in Barcelona). A new feature of the safety meeting was the use of case studies, which
engaged students more in the presentation because they actually had to come up with solutions to
potential emergencies on their own. This was followed by a short “icebreaker” activity with the



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students on the hotel terrace; afterwards students departed with staff members for a walk through
the central area of Barcelona.

Starting on the second day, orientation was based at International House (instead of the hotel).
Two “guardian angels” took students to buy mobile phones, school supplies, etc. around Plaza
Catalunya. (All students except for one had a mobile phone this summer.) This helped them to
familiarize themselves with the city more rapidly. At the end of the day’s activities, students
returned to Hotel Balmes. After the host families had all arrived, the Housing Coordinator
accompanied the other five students to the residencia.

On the third day, the Cultural Activities Coordinator and CIEE Liberal Arts Program professor, Toni
Raja presented “Understanding Catalonia,” a new orientation session which has been developed
in response to the ACB evaluation of the Barcelona semester programs. The purpose of the
presentation was to give students some background on the Spanish autonomous region of
Catalonia, its culture, traditions, and language, as well as its context within Spain and Europe.
Students appreciated being informed about the cultural, political and linguistics differences right at
the start of the program. For next year the session will likely be shorter and not follow the session
on “Cultural activities”. Staff will also explore ways to make the session more interactive in order to
encourage student participation.

Other orientation sessions held throughout the week included “Health, Transportation and Money,”
“Academics,” “Housing,” “Cultural Activities,” a Welcome Meeting at ESCI with Jordi Puig, the
Course Coordinator for International Students, and a Cross-Cultural Workshop. Similar to the
semester orientations, several cultural activities were incorporated into orientation.

The following visits were organized during orientation: Barrio Gótico, Park Güell, Sagrada Familia
and La Pedrera.

At the end of the orientation, students completed a short evaluation. To the general question “How
would you rate orientation?” students’ response was positive (Excellent: 9%; Very Good: 54%;
Good: 36%, Fair: 0%, Poor: 0%). On the end of program on-line evaluations, students generally
noted that the orientation was too lengthy. Next summer the orientation session will be shortened.
Some additional changes based on student feedback will be implemented:

    •   When possible, more time will be dedicated to explaining where important places are on
        an actual map
    •   Residencia students will no longer be required to attend the housing meeting
    •   As summer registration is done by email before the arrival of the students, students should
        not be obligated to meet with the RD about academics unless they have a specific issue to
        resolve
    •   The “Understanding Catalonia” presentation will be edited to make it a bit more concise.
    •   Curiously, although the ratio of Guardian Angel to CIEE student was 1:6, students said
        they wanted more.

Cultural Activities, Excursions and Company Visit
All the students took part to the flamenco and tapas activities. Only three attended the film activity.
The lower attendance may result from their Spanish level, given the movie was in Spanish, also
the activity was held on a Friday and many students were traveling. Only two students participated
in the Big gymkhana scavenger hunt and four in the photography contest. The gymkhana seems
less appropriate to the summer as the short stay is already packed with things to do. All these
activities received positive evaluations by the students.


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Students also attended the fountains show at Plaza de Espanya, and a cooking class. In
particular, the cooking class resulted in a rich cultural and gastronomical experience. Students
learned to cook Spanish dishes such as tortilla de patatas, paella, crema catalana, and more. After
cooking, they dined on what they had prepared.

CIEE organized its own language exchange. The Cultural Activities Coordinator arranged a
meeting between the twelve CIEE students and six Spanish students in a café in the La
Barceloneta area. This experience was a success, and students themselves went on and set up
periodical meetings with their language partners throughout the rest of the summer.

Lastly, CIEE offered students a chance to participate in a casting. One student signed up and was
selected. She acted in a “short “by an independent movie director.

Two one-day excursions were offered to Penedés and “Mundo Dalí”. These were both successful.
Unfortunately, the company visit to Barcelona’s City Hall was not as successful. The visit ended up
being a lecture by the City Hall representative about their marketing strategies. Students had
different expectations and were disappointed. A new activity will be substituted next summer.

Overall, students felt that there were too many activities for the short summer program, and that
there were too many obligatory activities (there were two –both on Saturdays). Next summer there
will be only one obligatory weekend activity and some of the other weekday activities will be made
optional.

Housing
Five students lived in the Residencia Onix. Onix is close to ESCI, the CIEE offices at International
House, is air conditioned, and has a swimming-pool. Students evaluated the accommodation
highly. Three of the students shared kitchen with a non-English speaking student.

Seven students lived in homestays. There were no complaints during the program.

No medical emergencies arose.

Interestingly, summer students traveled mostly within Spain, and postponed travel to Europe until
after the completion of the program.

Students

Enrollment                           Gender
Summer              12               Male           3
                                     Female         9

Average Student GPA           3.38

Top Enrollments by Major                         Top Sending Schools
 Accounting                                       University of Colorado at Boulder
 Economics                                        George Washington University
 English                                          Santa Clara University
 International Business                           University of Iowa
 Business Management                              New School University




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Future Directions
Next summer the program will also offer the following CIEE-organized culture courses: Past and
Present in Barcelona, (in English), Visions of Spain and Catalonia Through the Arts (for students
with 2-3 prior semesters of Spanish), and Cultural Encounters and Social Problems in
Contemporary Spain (for students with 4 or more prior semesters of Spanish.

Students will take language plus either a culture course or business course.




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