Cornell
- Cantabria
Exchange Program
Cornell
- Cantabria
Exchange Program
Spend your junior year in Spain!
Next Informational Meeting
November 9 @ 4:30 pm, 201 Hollister Hall
Hola from Santander - a blog from students currently in the program
Welcome to the home page of a program developed by the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Cornell University with the goal of facilitating Cornell College of Engineering students to spend their junior year in Santander, Spain at the Universidad de Cantabria (this link has a very nice introductory movie to U. Cantabria, and information on the university in English, can be found here). The new program officially launched in August 2007 with eight members of the Class of 2009 participating. Classes of 2011 & 2012 interested in such an experience are particularly encouraged to fill out the survey of initial interest (link below). Anyone interested in studying Engineering or working as an engineering in Spain is encouraged to complete the survey as we have advised and found opportunites for Cornell Engineering students to carry out summer internships as well as find permanent jobs in Spain.
The proposed program was developed around School of Civil & Environmental Engineering core course requirements but students in other majors (the first group of students included CEE, BEE, and independent Engineering majors) interested in the program should fill out the survey and begin looking at the flexibility of their own major for study abroad.
The program allows up to 20 Cornell College of Engineering students to participate in the program each year. The first group of students arrived in Santander, Spain in August of 2007 and took two emersion Spanish language course (one during the month of August and one the first 3 weeks of September). A second group of students arrived in Santander in time to take just the September emersion Spanish language course. The language requirement for applying to the program is the completion of SpanR 123 or its equivalent or demonstration of this background through scoring a minimum of 56 on the Language Placement Spanish (LPS) exam offered online by the Department of Romance Studies.
The Cornell group of Juniors is paired each year one-for-one with Universidad de Cantabria Engineering 3rd year students and the total group of students (16 for the 2007-2008 academic year) begins taking fall semester classes around the 4th week of September. The student group takes four Cornell CEE equivalent junior year engineering core courses, to be taught in English, and the Cornell group takes a fifth course in Spanish language taught entirely in Spanish, equivalent to SpanR 3xx level, or another liberal distribution studies course taught in Spanish.
The second semester begins around the 3rd week of February and again four core CEE Cornell equivalent junior year courses are offered in English and a liberal studies course, developed especially for this program on Prehistoric European Art, is taught in Spanish. The Universidad de Cantabria together with the Instituto del Prehistoria (Institute of Prehistory) house many of the leading world exports in this field, due to their proximity to the Altamira Cave (a UNESCO World Heritage site, 30 km from Santander).
Any
students with the language skills to take regularly scheduled
Universidad de Cantabria courses may do so at any time as students are
fully registered Cantabrian students. Our 2007-2008 students
found that by second semester, they had sufficient language
skills to be able to take courses in Spanish if they were interested.
The second semester final exams finish in June and interested students then have the option of being placed in a Spanish engineering firm for an internship experience before returning to Cornell to complete their senior year in Ithaca. Many of the 2007-2008 Cornell students are carrying out such an internship.
The Cantabrian students paired with the Cornell students in Santander will spend their 4th year at Cornell forming a true exchange program and it is a goal of the program to create opportunities for the entire group of students to continue to interact and support each other during this second year. The first group of Cantabrian students will arrive in Ithaca in August 2008 and live in West Campus. We plan to take advantage of the unique community that West Campus offers to bring the entire Cornell-Cantabria group together regularly for meals and social functions. If you are interested in the program contact Prof. Cowen about ooportunties to join the group so you can talk to current program participants.
At right: Cornell Class of 2009 student with their Cantabrian peers, Jose (Pepe) Revilla (Director of E.T.S de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos), Federico Gutierrez-Solana (Chancellor of the University of Cantabria), Angel Agud (Economic Advisor of the Cantabrian Goverment).
If you are interested in this program and would like to be on the email list about future meetings and social opportunties, please fill out the survey below
If you have any questions about the proposed program our studying engineering in Spain please contact Prof. Cowen in CEE - he would be more than happy to hear from you.