Universitat de Barcelona (UB) reviews

The Knox College in Barcelona Program arranges its own courses taught by UB faculty on the UB campus. Enrollment in these courses, which are limited to topics dealing with Spanish language and culture with a few exceptions, is open to program participants only, most of which come from the United States, or more specifically, are Knox College students. While the professors the program employs are very knowlegeable in their areas of expertise and enjoy working with international students, the isolation of the program within UB is sometimes detrimental to the students' efforts to adjust to life in Barcelona. For example, many students continue to speak English with their American classmates in the program because it is the most comfortable and natural for them and they have difficulty making friends among the Spanish students who they don't interact with in regular classroom settings. While placing all program participants in classes together is comforting because of the common past experiences in American universities and the present situation having to intergrate themselves to life in Barcelona, most of the students find that they do not get to meet and interact with Spanish students at the UB as much as they would like to. Only some of the students have the opportunity to actually enter the Universitat de Barcelona and then take the same classes all Spanish students there can take, but these students must be staying on the Knox College program for the duration of the UB term as well, which is not always equal to program terms.

See "recommendations in regard to courses" above.

You must point out first what your main objectives are. If you are planning to learn the language, or if you are planning to study something specifically or if you are interested in the University. If you want to speak the language, choose classes where you can socialize more, if you want to specialize on that subject this place has the best, do it and try to see why, and if you are interest in the University, try to know it all. Be sure that mixing these objectives is good but that having a mainly objective is necessary.

Try to make friends fast! Be shameless and maybe you will find some friends. Try it the hard as you can because they will help you choosing classes, apartments, neighborhoods and will make your trip unforgettable.

No real recommendations - we were allowed to take classes outside of the program specially designated for the U of I/U of C students. This posed a problem sometimes as the classes were in Catalan and not Castellano - but people also learned Catalan in order to take some of the classes .....I really enjoyed the classes within our program as they were interesting and geared for the foreign student - (but still all in Spanish)

Computers were hard to come by and the ones that were available didn't always work that great - but I understand that they don't always have the facilities we do in the US in other countries....

The thing is that the method of evaluation is very diffrent from my home country. In Spain they don´t have tests, homework, projects, essays, presentations throught out the semester course. They just have one closed multiple choice final exam and depending in what you get in the test is what your grade is. I personally dont think the a single closed test can evaluate everything you learned through out the course.

I would suggest that there should be homework, projects, presentations, tests through out the course that evaluate in different percentages what we learn, instead of only one single closed exam at the end.

I will not recommed any subjects specific, but have a good look a the subject that you want to do and verify with the International Relation Office if it is possible to follow the course in Spanish. All subject are given in Catalonian and next to that in Spanish, I had to go for one course to another faculty. But that is Barcelona, everything is in the Catalonian language

I would prefer more interactiveness between students and teachers. Next to that they should change their accommodation to make it a more friendly study area.

Some courses are in Catalan and as a foreign student it is hard enough to understand something of the Spanish classes, so that´s why I really boicot the Catalan classes. Also some inscriptions etc. are in the Catalan language (all the information of the sportcentre of the university for example), it is really strange in my opinion that they don´t have it in Spanish)

The academic level isn´t the highest. Everything is being repeated over and over. If you are a student with some academic level than this isn´t necessary.