Riley Dignam originally signed up for the Fall 2011 term in Oviedo but soon afterwards decided to stay for the Spring semester 2012 to complete the academic year. Oviedo’s strengths as a language and culture immersion site turned out to be both a fun and wise decision.
Riley recently visited us and coincided with 2 other Oviedo alums. Although you can’t go home again, once you have studied abroad with us in Oviedo you gain lifetime membership in the GEOviedo family! Here is what Riley wrote:
I always had people tell me, “Studying abroad was the most fun I had in college” or “Man, I wish I had studied abroad during college”. Obviously, I had no choice but to study abroad after hearing such things over the course of my first two years in college. When it came time to choosing the right program for me, I narrowed it down to one country based on my field of interest – Spain. There were, of course, the popular choices of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, etc., but then I saw this city on the study abroad map that I had never heard of before – Oviedo. After much research and Google image searching, I was sold! Not only was the name completely new to me, it was beautiful in a way much different from what you picture when imagining a dry and arid Spain; it was mountainous, lush and green!
Apart from its sheer beauty, the main reason I chose Oviedo was because I knew I would be more immersed in a town without a lot of tourism like Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville.
Once I arrived, I knew I made the right choice. I was forced to learn the language because they weren’t accustomed to having Americans living in their city so English was hardly every spoken! I quickly became a part of the community by tutoring English to Spanish children in the evenings, playing basketball with the locals, and enjoying the Oviedo night life in old town!
Currently, I work for a company that does business across the world including Spain. Because of my background studying and living in Spain, I continue to visit the country as a representative of my company. The Oviedo program gave me a “once in a lifetime” experience of being completely immersed in a culture, allowing me to learn the language better than I would have in a city brimming with tourism and English speakers.
If you really want to learn the language and truly be immersed in Spanish culture, go to Spain’s best kept secret – Oviedo!
