Have you thought of studying art classes abroad? The experience could be an experience of a lifetime as you embrace yourself to the many available opportunities in your career program. Many of those who studied abroad have become very respectable professionals when they go back to their own countries. This is because they not only increase their level of educational background but they have learned many things in other countries which are not known by many of their countrymen. That truly explains why a study abroad program is a very amazing and unforgettable experience of a lifetime.

D’Vinci Escola D’Art – The D’Vinci Escola D’Art is one of the best art schools in Barcelona, Spain. I am an artist by profession and I have traveled and visited many art schools in this beautiful and economically-developed country in Europe. Barcelona is one of the most populous cities where you can find many distinguish art schools. This particular art school offers subjects for nude modeling and architecture and urban landscape. For nude modeling, classes are scheduled in the morning and evening with subject matters consisting of human anatomy and sketching classes. The program basically includes basic drawing techniques, artistic anatomy and techniques for face drawing, graphite, water color, charcoal, pen, and Indian ink Students should at least be able to complete 20 hours in a week class with actual sketching of male and female models. Here, you would really know the sketching of perfect human body and physique because there are live models. Part of the package also is a scheduled visit to the Historic Barcelona, a very popular museum in Spain as well as other museums within the Barcelona area.

For architecture and urban landscape course, you can also feel the Barcelona experience because program is basically-designed for students to discover the beauty of Barcelona being the capital of modernism art (art nouveau). The city is where the famous architect Antonio Gaudi lives and creates his wonderful artistic creations of the famous architectures of the country. In his creations, you can always see the modern European architecture although the place is also famous for gothic architectures such as Santa Maria del Mar church and the Cathedral. If you happened to visit Barcelona you should not forget to visit the very famous and interesting places of attractions like the Las Ramblas, La Boqueria, the superb ports and pristine beaches. The architecture and landscape course is actually offered for beginners, designers and architects and for people who want to get familiarize with the fundamentals of sketching and free hand drawing. There is also a scheduled field trip to the Historic Barcelona museum.

The program in art would only last for one or two weeks and you can choose your option. The package costs 220 Euros for One week and 400 Euro for 2 weeks.

ONE thing that fascinates me is filmmaking. And one of my idols is Antonio Banderas. He surely rocks. I want to follow in his footsteps. After being successful here in Spain, he went to Hollywood and earned a lot of money. He even had the guts to court Melanie Griffith and even married her. So here I am in the University of Salamanca taking up filmmaking. The mood here is very Americanized as undoubtedly, the city is the most Americanized city in Spain.

And so it came to pass that I am already in my junior year in college and I was recently granted to study for one whole semester at Sundance Institute in Salt Lake City. Isn’t that amazing? I will be spending time not just studying Hollywood films but also walk in the very same halls where great directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh were molded.

This semester, we will be studying on the best films of the year, how they were directed and whether their actors were deserving of the accolades that they receive. I have a particular fascination with the Oscar-nominated movies, actors and actresses.

I begin with the movies that were nominated for best films. It is sad to note that of all the films that were released last year and are eligible for the Academy Awards, my choice was never nominated. My choice was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is actually the title of a book written by a paraplegic with Locked-In Syndrome, meaning only his eyes can move. Now isn’t that fascinating? Sadly, it was never nominated.

Another movie which was never nominated because it was released already in 2008 (just today actually, January 25) is one foreign language film coming in from Romania. The title is 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and it talks about the dilemma of a girl who is four months three weeks and two days pregnant on whether to abort her baby or not.

Barring those, the next movie that I want to win for the Oscar is Juno because Ellen Page is starring in it. Ellen Page was the one who played Shadowcat in X Men 3, remember? But it is not Ellen’s beauty which fascinated me in this film. The poor girl gets knocked up and because she cannot afford to raise her baby, she has to give it up for adoption with the condition that she will never see the baby ever even after birth. Now there goes the dilemma.

Now let’s take a look at the movie Atonement. Like Sleepers, Atonement takes a look at what happened in the past and how it has molded the lives of the characters at a later period. Just like Crash and Vantage Point, Atonement is told from different points of view. There are so many nice movies today but I will study only two of them – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days.

THERE’S a lot to learn if you will be studying abroad even for just a semester or so. Think of Baby Jane. She studies French in a university in Maine. Now that she is a senior, she’s president of the French club in the university that she is studying. For that, she has been granted an all-expense paid semester in a student exchange program to Paris for one semester. I don’t need to mention to you that Baby Jane is a full academic scholar at the university that she is enrolled in.

And her counterpart, Jean-Robert, is an English major at the University of Paris. He is also granted one semester to study in Maine. And now the lives of these two strangers have unfolded as each has experienced what a few may see as a coming-of-age experience. The experience of being abroad for the first time is surely exhilarating as one will be entangled and entrapped in a community of strange-speaking tongues. But for these two people, it will be hardly a struggle because they have already known a second language.

And so Baby Jane arrives here in Paris amidst the sparkling lights at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport. The school year here – just like in the United States starts in September right after summer. When she first arrived here, she was introduced to a lot of French friends whom she immediately got acquainted with because of her fluency in the French language already. They toured her around town in such known places as the Louvre, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, the Shakespearean Library and everything else in between.

In fact, she was envied by lots of friends back home in Maine who were drooling over her picture at one of the Eiffel Tower guided tours. They want to go to France across the Atlantic as soon as possible already. Baby Jane found most of her friends as highly intellectual but very forthcoming and hospitable. They even shared a cramped flat with her in the middle of Paris and Baby Jane has to endure going to the laundry all by herself. It’s a hard knock life here in Paris but she surely enjoyed the heck out of it.

Crime is never a problem here so the girls do partying every weekend. In fact, one weekend, they trooped all the way to Palma de Mallorca in Spain just to have some fun. It was one weekend that she never enjoyed back home in Maine, Baby Jane now recalls. Now that it’s Christmastime, Paris is abuzz with dazzling Christmas lights in the whole city. And Baby Jane is definitely enjoying it as well as the Eiffel Tower is transformed to a gigantic Christmas tree. As a Catholic herself, religious services at the Notre Dame Cathedral and the relatively smaller but more solemn Shrine of the Miraculous Medal erected by the Blessed Catherine Laboure.

Baby Jane has also tasted various French foods in its entire splendor at the cafeteria in the American University of Paris. Among the delicacies she has already tasted include the famed bouillabaisse.