CAPA WORLD

In 1986, an ambitious graduate student named John Christian traveled from his home city of Troy, New York to England where he would complete a master’s degree at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

Sometimes a change in scenery is just what you need for a boost in motivation to write a paper or to provide you with inspiration to complete a big project. Luckily, there are lots of great alternative places to study in London. If you’ve been sticking to CAPA’s study space or your bedroom and find yourself getting distracted easily or are feeling uninspired, it’s time to take your laptop out into the city. Try one of our 10 recommendations below:

It can be difficult to make the healthiest of choices while studying abroad. It’s a completely new environment, with different people and simple nuances of daily life that fall outside of a well-established comfort zone to learn to navigate. There’s a strong desire to pack as much into a semester or summer abroad as possible, to travel, to explore the host city and still excel academically as well as professionally at an internship placement. It’s easy to forget to drink eight glasses of water a day or make time for mindfulness and reflection.

That considered, CAPA London is piloting a new series titled “Healthy Choices Abroad” to help students find balance in this area. Each week, a new theme comes into focus and is explored either through a scheduled talk or activity, drop-in sessions where students are invited to speak with staff, or through informative handouts and posters around the center.

CAPA London has recently formed an exciting partnership with Student Central, the largest student center in Europe. 

It’s home to University of London students, from the group’s 18 colleges and 9 other smaller specialist research institutes. That includes more than 120,000 students, which means there’s potential for CAPA students* to make a lot of new friends from a very wide variety of backgrounds.

Centrally located in Bloomsbury, and just a short journey from the CAPA center, this huge space opens up many more opportunities to become immersed in and experience the typical London student life and culture.

Yes, CAPA global cities are bursting with people from around the globe and are inevitably full of social and networking opportunities. They're also home to some pretty amazing quieter places though, and are host to tons of activities that give the introverts among us a chance to recharge and perhaps discover another, more peaceful, side of a bustling metropolis. Here are 10 of our favorites in Buenos Aires:

1. ENJOY THE PARKS & PLAZAS. While Buenos Aires isn't a city particularly celebrated for its acres of green space, there are still plenty of parks and plazas that offer an opportunity for a moment of solitude among the millions of commuters and tourists filling city streets. For convenience, we love Parque Lezama in San Telmo with its proximity to the market where you can pick up a bite to eat. Jardin Botánico Carlos Thays, another favorite, is a lush oasis with plenty of shade and pretty historic greenhouses. Bring a book, sip a mate and chill. The Borderless Project shares their top 8 parks in BA, worth a read. It's not bad on a rainy day either with a visit to the Planetarium.

“Excited.”
“Nervous.”
“Dedicated.”
“Confused.”
“Intrigued.”

A new group of students had arrived in London a few days earlier and, as part of their welcome week and three-day orientation, they shared a few words to describe the mix of emotions flooding their thoughts.

The words—all of them valid and very normal—came as no surprise to London Internships Placement Manager Katie Lander. “One of my favorite activities is for students to complete our three-word exercise,” she shared. “We ask them to pick three words to describe how they are feeling. We’ll look over these then see how we can help them settle some of these feelings. In their Global Internship Workshop class, they reflect on these words again and share three new words on how they are feeling at the end of their internship that helps them consider what has taken place during their time abroad.”

When you study and intern abroad, opportunities will constantly be presenting themselves for you to grow professionally. The overarching benefits of picking up new skills will serve you in the years to come.

In an article written in 2018, LinkedIn Business shared their findings from hiring and recruiting data that they pulled between January-September 2017 (which was billions of data points) to identify the most in-demand hard and soft skills for 2018 and on. From this and several other sources which produced similar data, we’ll take a look at six of the professional skills you need to succeed this year and some of the ways studying and interning abroad can play a role.

Yes, CAPA global cities are bursting with people from around the globe and are inevitably busy places. They're also home to some pretty amazing quieter spaces too that give the introverts among us a chance to recharge and perhaps discover another, more peaceful, side of a bustling metropolis. We recommend picking up a copy of a book called Quiet Barcelona by Siobhan Wall before you go. It’s packed full of ideas, but here are 10 of our personal favorite ways to recharge in the city.

Pick up a book or two to read before you study abroad in Barcelona and, of course, choose one for the journey. We’ll share 10 of our favorite recommendations below, but we’d also love to know if you’ve discovered any you love. If you have, mention @CAPAStudyAbroad on social media with your own suggestions.

Whether you're studying abroad in Barcelona now, making your bucket  list and traveling there soon, or just back in the United States and reminiscing about the food in Spain, here are 10 resources you'll appreciate.