December 13, 1994
You may have seen them in your business classes or hanging around the residence halls and apartments. They are 53 students from a small business school in northern Spain who are required to spend a year and a half at SF State before graduating.
Dr. Edwin Duer, department chairperson for international business at SF State, helped bring the students to SF State.
"The program was initiated by the chambers of commerce of the three main cities of Austurias who felt that the University of Oviedo (in Austurias) wasn't providing a sufficient program for its students studying international business," Duer said.
According to Duer, the program and the school were started in 1991 by the chambers of commerce and local businesses.
"Students spend their first year in Spain, their second at SF State and half of their fourth year here at SF State," Duer said.
"The school in (Austurias) is very small," said Victor Sevillano of Austurias Business School, located in a region supported by the mining and shipping industries. "We have one floor in an office building downtown. There are four classrooms, a small library and a computer room."
"What brought me to SF State was the chance to study my major in two languages and the chance to be here in San Francisco for a year and a half," Gloria Rico said. Rico is finishing her last semester of the program at SF State.
Duer worked on a board of advisers for the business school at the University of Madrid for four years, he said. Program organizers chose SF State because they knew him beforehand, he said.
The students from Austurias study international business, marketing, accounting and finance.
For some of the students, it was a big jump to come to a different country.
"Although many of the people who came here to study had already been to America before, when I came here with the first class in 1992 my first experience was not that great," Rico said. "My first week I didn't like the food, the people seemed weird to me and I didn't like my classes, but later as time went on you see things differently and you adapt. Things are different now."
Sevillano said, "For me, the things that are different from Spain is that back home I was more involved with sports and, like most of the students here from Spain, I lived with my parents. In Spain you can't always live the way you want because you live at home and have to live by the rules. Here you can do what you want."
In Spain, students must take difficult entrance exams to be accepted to the university, Sevillano said. Classes are different, also, he said.
"I like the classes here better in that they are more practical, in Spain it is more theory. Here you do more. In Spain, you just take notes and at the end of the year you take one giant final exam," Sevillano said.
Duer said the term "exchange" is used loosely with this program, as SF State does not send as many students to Spain.
"The exchange program doesn't go both ways, since it is a small school. But we do send three or four students a year to the school as well as teachers. This way the students will have already had an English-speaking teacher from (SF State) before they come here."
Many students don't have trouble adjusting to American life.
"I don't miss Spain," Sevillano said. "What I miss most is my family and the food. If it wasn't for my family (not being here), I would feel right at home here."