Midday, Tuesday, July 8, 2025, Miami, Florida
In the fall of 1988, I participated in the International College of Seville/College Consortium for International Studies’ Semester in Spain program. I lived and studied there for 12 weeks, immersing myself in the country’s history, government, culture, and (por supuesto) its language.
At my home institution, Miami-Dade Community College, South Campus, I majored in journalism/mass communications. I was young, a bit naïve, and perhaps a touch overconfident. So, weeks before I boarded my Iberia flight across the Pond in late September, I volunteered to serve as Catalyst’s—our campus student paper’s—foreign correspondent.
Nowadays, such an assignment is logistically easy. Portable computers, smartphones with digital cameras, SIM cards, and Wi-Fi have made connectivity almost automatic, and ICS staff and students routinely post photos, videos, and updates to social media.
But that wasn’t the case in 1988. Sure, personal computers were around, and I believe academic institutions were connected to early versions of the Internet. I owned an Apple II—courtesy of my father’s brother, Sixto Diaz-Granados—but it was far too unwieldy to take across the Atlantic. Even if it weren’t, email and commercial ISPs were still a few years away.
Instead, I relied on a battery-operated Brother electronic typewriter with (ugh) self-correcting ink and a secondary thermal paper function, the newspaper’s backup Canon Sure Shot (which, incidentally, was stolen during my return journey in December 1988), and my powers of observation. I’d like to say I carefully jotted down notes for accuracy, especially when interviewing faculty, staff, or fellow students, but I’m terrible at notetaking—so I leaned on my ability to pay attention and remember what people said during interviews.
Between September and December 1988, I wrote a series of articles about the Fall ’88 group’s experiences in southern Spain. They were mostly drawn from my own perspective; as I said, I couldn’t act as a detached observer or professional reporter, though in a few stories I included interviews, proper attributions, and emphasized the classic journalistic Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.
Naturally, I hoped my reporting would reach South Florida in time for publication in weekly campus paper issues while I was still in Seville. But again—this was 1988, not 2025. We had air mail, and I lived in a major Spanish city, not a tiny rural village. Still, even with a 200 peseta air mail stamp, letters and packages took days, sometimes weeks, to cross the Atlantic. Plus, some of my early efforts weren’t good enough to print, so the editors back home only published one of my columns in the December 1, 1988, issue of Catalyst.
In addition to the thrill of reporting from abroad, I’ve found what I came looking for, and perhaps more. As I mentioned earlier, studying abroad is challenging in every sense of the word.
Alex Diaz-Granados
Study abroad is more than educational: it’s an experience
Alex Diaz-Granados, Columnist
Written circa early November but published December 1, 1988.
SEVILLE, Spain (CCIS Program)
Over the past six weeks of my stay here in Seville as a participant in the College Consortium for International Studies semester in Spain program, I have come to understand how challenging studying abroad really is. Several other students from this campus are also taking part in this program.
In many respects, studying abroad is no different from studying at our home college or university. We have our schedule set up much like we do in the U.S., with lectures and reading assignments.
We have midterms and finals, of course, although in some classes final exams are given at the professor’s discretion. Unlike studying in the U.S., we’re learning about a different country’s history, culture, government and economic system, not by reading about those in a textbook, but by actually living in it.
“It’s been a great experience for me,” said sophomore Wendy Page, who will be graduating from South Campus in the Winter Term. “I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish and to be more knowledgeable about life in other countries. This program has really been a great step in that direction.”
It takes a lot of self-discipline to keep yourself from turning a study-abroad experience into a mere tourist excursion. It isn’t really that hard, it just takes a little readjustment of your priorities.
Alex Diaz-Granados
I, too, have also wanted to come to Spain to experience European culture and history first-hand, having been inspired by all those humanities and history courses I have taken at Miami-Dade.
In addition to the thrill of reporting from abroad, I’ve found what I came looking for, and perhaps more. As I mentioned earlier, studying abroad is challenging in every sense of the word.
I am not just talking about the academic program here, although I have found it to be one of the most difficult yet satisfying ones in my college experience.
There is a great deal more involved here, classes, tests, and term papers aside.
In addition to the basic problems of living in a country with a different language, history, culture and political system, a student abroad can expect to face the following challenges:
Homesickness. This can be overcome with a positive outlook and support from fellow students and the home front. There have been days when most of us here have felt depressed, when we have mailed post cards and letters to everyone we know and no one except parents have bothered to write back.
Culture shock. Believe me, when you first travel to a foreign country, you will be hit by the oh-my-God-how-weird-this-place-is syndrome. I still get impatient with the “let’s close everything down between 2 and 5 p.m. and go home for lunch” system.
Meeting new people. A very universal challenge anywhere, but if you’re going to study-travel abroad, you must make friends both with your fellow students and the natives you come in contact with. One of the nice things about the program is that I’ve met students not only from my home campus but also from colleges and universities from all over the U.S.
Anti-Americanism. Whenever a major power like the U.S. gets to be a country with wealth and influence and the military muscle to back it, all the other nations tend to get resentful.
Thankfully, all of these things can be overcome with a little patience and a lot of determination.
Another thing that I’ve learned about the program is how to rely upon myself. Basically, I’m responsible for everything; I have to pay for my rent, my books and school supplies, monitor my own progress and so on.
It takes a lot of self-discipline to keep yourself from turning a study-abroad experience into a mere tourist excursion. It isn’t really that hard, it just takes a little readjustment of your priorities.
“I’d recommend the program to anyone who really wants to learn Spanish and get acquainted with Spain itself,” said Greg Norell, a student from Texas. “I think it’s the best way to get a feeling for the language and culture.”
The way the program itself is set up is really the key to a student’s enjoyment of the Seville experience. The mixture of academics and extracurricular activities makes studying abroad challenging yet fun, too.
“I’d recommend the program to anyone who really wants to learn Spanish and get acquainted with Spain itself.
Greg Norell, a student from Texas.
I think it’s the best way to get a feeling for the language and culture.”
Postscript — July 2025
Revisiting this column nearly four decades later brings with it a quiet reverence. I was 25 then—not a teen fresh out of high school, but still on the cusp of real adulthood. Old enough to know a bit of the world’s rhythm, but young enough to still be surprised by its beat. I stepped into Seville armed not with bravado, but with curiosity, hope, and just enough overconfidence to believe I had something worth saying.
These days, the tools we use to capture experience have changed. Our cameras are embedded in our phones, our journals uploaded to blogs or apps in real time. But the emotional terrain—the dislocation, the revelations, the slow layering of perspective—remains as intimate and profound as ever.
That time in Spain wasn’t simply a chapter in my education; it was a pivot point. It deepened my understanding of storytelling not just as reportage, but as reflection. It showed me how small, personal moments could carry the weight of something far more universal.
And now, as I continue shaping stories that explore resilience, regret, redemption, and connection, I see that my journey in Seville was not just about learning abroad. It was about learning how to listen, how to observe, and how to honor the complexity of being human. The 1988 column remains a quiet landmark in that evolution—and I wouldn’t change a word of it.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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