CEA Study Abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina

The CEA Medical Spanish Immersion Program is the perfect program for premed students looking to improve their Spanish. As a premed student, I was able to complete 60 hours of shadowing in a high ranked hospital and laboratory. I was also able to gain fluency in Medical Spanish through both a classroom and a clinical setting. Some specialties and fields that I observed were internal medicine, neurology, neurosurgery (I saw a double bypass surgery and some awake brain surgeries), radiology, physical therapy, nursing, and molecular biology. Although the program was rigorous and intensive in terms of the schedule, there were numerous opportunities to sight-see and experience Argentinian culture! Having 3-day weekends allowed me to relax and explore Buenos Aires freely.

I really appreciated how helpful the onsite CEA staff was (Maggie and Flor) in helping us get accustomed to living abroad. They were always available to help us out every step of the way and were super friendly! I was also fortunate to have had an amazing host mom and to have stayed in a homestay with other students. Even though I was miles from home, I felt like I had a family in Buenos Aires. CEA was the best program for me because I was not only able to gain a memorable experience, but I also felt that I gained lifelong friends and connections!

Studying abroad in Buenos Aries with CEA was the most transformative experience of my college career. There is always something to do in the hustling and bustling city, and there are so many museums and sites to see in the city. The local porteño culture is such a unique blend of many different cultures. The onsite advisors, Julieta and José, are so helpful and fun to be around. The CEA trips, especially the trip to Iguazú Falls, are a wonderful way to get to know your fellow students and see incredible places. The classes offered at the Universidad de Belgrano pose a fantastic opportunity to learn about Latin America from a local perspective and are challenging in the best way. I lived with a host family and it was the perfect opportunity to truly live like a porteña. I could not believe how much my language skills improved during my time in Buenos Aries. I would love to eventually move back to the city. Best experience ever!

CEA Buenos Aires was the best experience of my life! I could not have asked for a better semester abroad. From the city to the food to the academics everything was absolutely perfect and I would not change a thing. Most of all, the advisors, Jose and Julieta were phenomenal. From lost phones, to activities, our advisors were always there for us. They are two of the best people I met in Buenos Aires, and we still keep in touch regularly. The classes were very unique and informative. I would never take classes like those back in the states. We were extremely culturally immersed and each class had a field trip through the city at least twice a month which was great to see parts of the city through an academic lens. I would recommend this trip to anyone seeking adventure and an out of the box study abroad experience!

Buenos Aires really is the Paris of South America. This city has a wonderful European vibe and there are always a mountain of free activities available to its residents. Overall, I loved my time in Buenos Aires, but I do not think my Spanish improved as fast as it could have. Although my skills did increase from how they were at the start of the semester, I know they would have increased faster if I enrolled in a university for Spanish speakers, rather than decided to take classes at the CEA Study Center for American students. During the spring of 2018, the CEA Study Center in Buenos Aires only offered 2 courses in Spanish and the rest were in English. I took those 2 courses and I do feel like they slightly improved my Spanish, but the simple structure of the course work felt like a review of my high school Spanish classes, rather than a course with challenging learning objectives. The courses taught in English were rather easy too. If I were to do it again, I think I would have enrolled in a university with other native Spanish speakers.

Aside from my Spanish skills not growing as fast as I would have liked them too, I genuinely loved my time in Buenos Aires. I think this is a wonderful city and I feel like my abroad experience enabled me to mature and learn more about myself.

Buenos Aires is an awesome city with a bajillion things to do, and the CEA staff was always helpful in recommending activities and helping us check off our list of things we wanted to do. My classes were all liberal arts classes since that was my program, and they all had an immersion component, where we'd go on field trips and link the things we were learning about in class to the country we were living in.

Everyone coming to Buenos Aires should definitely go see a fútbol game, because the fans in Argentina are so incredibly passionate. You should also go to a Milonga, a tango club. The one downside of my semester is that I didn't get to travel as much as I wanted because Argentina is so huge that a lot of the places I wanted to go couldn't be visited in a weekend because the actual commute took an entire day each way.

CEA has provided us with much more than just a campus in the midst of a vibrant city -- any questions about any thing here are answered; the host home they put me in is perfect, with pets, tasty dinners, great location, an amazing host mom; every couple of weeks they take us on a CEA excursion, such as yerba mate & food tasting, a Tango dinner show, an overnight to Iguazu Falls... and so much more!
Classes are small and engaging, with various class outings and fun projects to prompt unique cultural experiences. Buenos Aires is a huge city, which could be very intimidating to study in if it weren't for the support I get from CEA and the resources they give us.. including free coffee and yerba mate to get us through the long days!

I really loved studying abroad with CEA here in Buenos Aires. The staff is really great and helpful, and go out of their way to help us find activities to participate in, great food to eat, and fun places to go in our free time. The study center was kind of strange, because it was very different than a normal campus feel that I am used to. That being said, we had a lounge where we could hang out with free coffee and tea, a more quiet computer lab/study room with several computers and free printing, and a place to store things during the day if we needed to. I enjoyed the classes as well, because I honestly knew close to nothing about Argentina before coming and I feel that I have learned a lot. We went on several weekend/day trips, some with CEA and some on our own. I felt like a lot of planning went into these CEA trips and I really appreciated that! As far as enjoying my time in the city or travelling on my own, that was totally up to me. The staff did a great job of keeping us informed about what things were happening in the city so that we could always have something to do. I know that some of my friends here complained a lot about the workload and that we always had so many assignments that we did not have any free time, but honestly that's not true!!! I really feel that the workload was completely appropriate for university level courses.

Buenos Aires is an incredible, life-changing, big bustling european city. However, there is no reason to go to this incredible country and spend all of your time with other students from the United States. There are a few opportunities to connect with local people if you explore outside of your comfort zone but I would highly recommend doing an exchange or taking classes at Belgrano instead. The professors are nice and everyone has the best of intentions but I feel that it would have been much better for my Spanish if I hadn't been surrounded by other English speakers constantly. I met many students from other programs who also were in a similar situation. Host families always vary but essentially many of the programs offer the same services.

My recommendation is to choose a program provider that doesn't include trips. You can always plan the same trips on your own. Usually much more affordably as well. This way you can go when you want to go, where you want to go and you can go with the people you want to! On these planned trips you are usually grouped in on a massive bus full of other american students.

Otherwise, CEA was lovely. I wouldn't regret spending a semester in Argentina for a second. I only regret not taking a bigger risk and doing an exchange or direct enroll program with other spanish speaking students.