Scott Farrand got his first taste of study abroad as a new faculty member, serving as a male chaperone for an all-female group headed to Jordan. Awed by how international travel transformed the students, Farrand came back dedicated to providing his own students with travel experiences that would shift their perspectives on life.
Nearly two decades later, the senior instructor in the College of Information and Communications has done just that, offering the University of South Carolina’s largest faculty-led program studying multimedia and international communications each summer in Barcelona.
Thanks to an agreement with Dean Tom Reichert, Barcelona program participants only pay for airfare, a small percentage of meals and personal spending money. The four-week program boasts affordability, unique cultural experiences and hands-on learning, but most importantly, it’s changing the lives of the students who make the journey.
Switching gears
For Bill Frye, heading to Barcelona in summer 2023 helped confirm that his recent move to broadcast journalism was a good decision. Now a senior, Frye had transferred from USC Salkehatchie and declared a computer science major, but something wasn’t right.
“I was always in front of a computer. I still love computer science, but you don’t get to talk to a whole lot of people,” says Frye.
Inspired by the prospect of covering political upheavals like he witnessed in Washington, D.C. when Roe v. Wade was overturned, Frye relocated to the J-school, but he wanted to be sure he was in the right place. “What better way to do that than to force myself in a situation without knowing what I’m getting myself into?” Frye says.
Brianna Hughey, a senior who traveled to Barcelona in summer 2024, had also recently joined the J-school after switching her major from criminal justice to public relations. Feeling a bit behind compared with her peers, study abroad was an ideal way for Hughey to immerse herself in her new program.
Work and play
Both Frye and Hughey were rewarded by a trip far beyond their initial expectations.
While in Barcelona, students work in small groups to complete a multimedia project that stretches their skills in storytelling, videography and photography. Frye’s group focused on flamenco, with a dual emphasis on dance and the process of making flamenco guitars.
“I focused on contacting guitar makers in the area, while my friends focused on finding underground shows for flamenco dancing,” Frye says. “We found sources and we would just go. Reaching out to people overseas and interviewing them in person was an extremely unique experience and I miss that still.”
Hughey, too, explored dance with her group, more broadly taking a look at dance culture in Barcelona and southern Europe. The blend between work and leisure was natural for her.
“When we would see people dancing on the street, I would pull my phone out. I’m recording,” she says. “And we had a photography class at a labyrinth park. It’s changed the whole way I take photos. It sounds small, but in journalism, that is so major. The work that I produced was something that I never thought I was capable of doing.”
Lifetime connections
Though students head to Barcelona to hone their multimedia skills and grow in cultural competence, they arrive back in Columbia with much more.
Sharing experiences abroad has a particular effect on students. Frye recalls many evenings spent enjoying Barcelona’s social scene, closing out long nights watching peaceful sunrises on the beach while surrounded by his newest friends in the J-school.
“My social life is completely different now, night and day,” he says. “These people have become the best friends I’ve had in my entire life. I would do anything for them. It’s crazy to think that I’ve only known them for over a year at this point.”
Hughey, too, remains in daily contact with her friends from Barcelona. “We see each other all the time, especially in the School of Journalism,” she says. “I had a pretty strong village at USC, but I now have 20 more people and professors to add to that. The trip is a brewing ground for lifelong friendships.”
Beyond the value of her new relationships, Hughey values the way her friends’ various skillsets taught and inspired her during their time abroad, and these lessons continue to provide motivation to produce great work and enhance her skills as grows in her field.
Looking ahead
As Frye and Hughey, both seniors, prepare to take their next steps, they move knowing they are equipped with new skills, friendships and perspectives on life from their time in Barcelona.
With international travel experience under his belt, Frye is interested in pursuing television news in Washington D.C. “I want to start locally, but part of why I chose this [career] is to travel and meet people, interview people and learn about them. The study abroad experience has made me want to dig more into that.”
Hughey is open to a wide range of possibilities. “The trip really shows you who you are. You find out a lot of things about yourself and the things you can accomplish,” she says. “I may go live in Spain for a year or two.”
Wherever she ends up, her goal is to be a “renaissance woman”: a versatile PR professional who’s equally comfortable in front of or behind the camera.
Farrand, too, has much to look forward to. The Barcelona trip attracted a record number of 90 students last year, such a large group that he was urged to consider shrinking the enrollment cap on the trip. Unwilling to compromise on providing as many students as possible with the experience of a lifetime, he’s created a solution: concurrent trips to Barcelona and Madrid in summer 2025 that will double the number of students who get to travel to Spain.
The question for students is no longer "Can I study in Spain this summer?" It’s "Which city?"