Engaging with Valencia Culture and History

All first-year seminars share an emphasis on navigating the Berklee experience, building a foundation for success as a student and an artist, and creating a sense of community among students and faculty. This seminar’s unique focus is on the city of Valencia and on the experience of studying abroad. Students explore Valencia including their immediate surroundings, and learn how historical and contemporary issues inform the city and its citizens. In addition, students learn about Berklee and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Students engage in activities with the goal of reflecting on the study abroad experience in order to increase their intercultural and interpersonal skills and foster personal growth. This course creates a safe, reflective space for discourse and debate. It gives students tools to put their own and their classmates’ beliefs and values in context, and explore their own biases. Students draw upon their skills and concerns as artists to reach for an informed, nuanced, and open-minded grasp of connections among a city, its people, history, and culture.