Student Blogs

¨HERE COMES THE SUN!¨

April 2nd, 2011 nmmari12

After about a week of rainy weather, I woke up on Friday to a glorious day. The sun brightly shined into my room to wake me up and I rushed to my computer to look up the weather. The high for the day was expected to be a balmy 80 degrees and just out of curiosity I looked up Worcester´s weather, which was represented by a little picture of a snowflake. Oh how I love Spain! The other HC kids and I went to the Santa Christina beach (about a 10 minute drive from Coruña) with our Spanish friend Giselle, and spent about an hour lying on the beach. The beautiful weather got me very excited for summer, but then unfortunately reminded me that I only have about 10 more weeks in Spain!!! 🙁

Earlier on Friday, before the beach adventure, I went to my first class of History of Galician Art…it´s on a different schedule, which is why I started it later than my other classes. The class was quite interesting, as we talked about art that dates back thousands of years ago that was found in caves and was used for hunting, storytelling or traditional ceremonies. The most interesting aspect was that a lot of this art was found in Galicia or other parts of Spain! It´s quite cool to be learning about such ancient history, and then go for a short drive and see it with your own eyes!  I hope that I am able to visit or see a few of these art pieces during my last few months in Coruña.

Dato Divertido: In Spain (and in most locations throughout the world) the university tuition is much lower than it is in the United States. I believe (not certain) that Universidade da Coruña costs about 3000 euros, whereas the average private university in the States is about $40,000 and public universities at about $11,000…obviously these are just averages and many schools (both private and public) cost more or less money. Part of the reason that Spain has a lower tuition is because a good portion of their taxes contributes to the universities and their taxes are higher than in the States. But on the other side, the United States offers more financial aid and scholarships than many other countries…probably due to the fact that it´s so expensive in the first place! In fact, many European countries (especially the UK and Ireland) have had student protests this year as the administration decided to greatly increase the tuition costs…but still far below the US cost. There are many other reasons for the differences in tuitions between countries that I don´t have time to list here, but overall it is a very interesting difference!

¡Hasta luego!

One Response to “¨HERE COMES THE SUN!¨”

  1. Kelsey says:

    Caves and rocks – oh my!!!

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