Thank you for visiting Travel & Education. I want to start by saying that this is not just a company that provides study abroad opportunities for students in Spain.
We are a team of dedicated academics with a passion for the promotion of Spanish language and Spanish culture. This passion is driven by the desire to broaden the horizons of our society as a whole. Recent events would indicate that we might not have made as much progress as we thought in the area of tolerance and compassion for other cultures or communities even within our own national borders.
Travel & Education has a mission. We want to make a difference in the growing minds of our youth. Our deepest wish is to encourage as many kids as possible, along with their parents and educators, to take the plunge and move out of their comfort zone, out of their city, state and country, to see how others live, study, work, communicate, and how they relate to others and you. By presenting students with options that are viable and attractive they are more likely to take that first step.
With Spanish being the most studied foreign language in the US (by 50% of college students) and the most widely spoken (by almost 50 million people in the US and 450 million worldwide), with Europe leading the charts for popularity among study abroad programs and Spain being the number one choice for programs in Spanish speaking countries and Salamanca being ground zero, we are in a great position to make that happen.
Although study abroad is growing in the US there are still very few who actually do it in comparison to other areas of the world. Study abroad not only provides the much needed language proficiency and cultural awareness by it opens peoples minds and hearts and creates deeper understanding and acceptance which translates to more tolerant societies and better global positioning.
As the US Director of this project, I am personally dedicated to this mission from a deeply personal place. I was born of immigrant parents who came to the US from Europe and provided me with the gift of language from birth for which I am eternally grateful. Little did they know that this gift would be the driving energy throughout my career in international trade and my return to academia through my pursuit of a terminal degree.
As a former professor of Spanish and international business professional, I have experienced first hand the advantages presented by fluency in other languages and knowledge of other cultures. My personal mission is to provide young people with the same gift and witness their joy and amazement as they walk the streets of our beautiful medieval city while feeling a sense of accomplishment in being able to communicate with natives in their own language. We invite you to join in our mission and we look forward to seeing you in Spain with us.