Santa Barbara City College (Santa Maria: high school, living, wealthy)

[rose22]

Does anyone of you study in SBCC? or know anyone who goes there? I know that in California there are a lot of Spanish-speakers but I would like to know if in SBCC there are more Spanish-speakers or americans? More or less, to have an idea.

And another question, the lifestyle in SB is like any other US small city/town, or it's different?

[Homero]

Originally Posted by rose22

Does anyone of you study in SBCC? or know anyone who goes there? I know that in California there are a lot of Spanish-speakers but I would like to know if in SBCC there are more Spanish-speakers or americans? More or less, to have an idea.

And another question, the lifestyle in SB is like any other US small city/town, or it's different?

SB is... a bit of a snotty city. There are a lot of Spanish speakers in CA, but if classes are done in English. In Santa Maria, Allan Hancock College have more classes in Spanish if I remember correctly, but most of those are remedial, for those who are interested in learning English. The Spanish here is Mexican Spanish, just in case that's important to you.

Hope that helps.

[Adriatica]

Originally Posted by rose22

Does anyone of you study in SBCC? or know anyone who goes there? I know that in California there are a lot of Spanish-speakers but I would like to know if in SBCC there are more Spanish-speakers or americans? More or less, to have an idea.

And another question, the lifestyle in SB is like any other US small city/town, or it's different?

Spanish-speakers OR Americans? Are you asking if there are a lot of Hispanic students? Plenty of Americans speak Spanish, both non-Hispanics and Hispanics alike. Most students at SBCC would have gone to high school in CA and the majority of CA high school students take Spanish. Or are you asking about native speakers? At any rate, the classes are all in English, so that shouldn't be a problem.

The lifestyle in Santa Barbara is different from any other US small city/town, I would say. High cost-of-living, a large wealthy population, and just a different lifestyle in general.

[rose22]

First of all thank you to your answers

I ask about that because in October I'm going to go for four months in USA to improve as much as I can my English level. I'm a 23-year old girl from Barcelona, Spain.
I'm thinking in going to Santa Barbara, because I wouldn't like to live in a big city like SF, L.A, NY, etc., and at least SB is smaller.
As I'm Spanish and in California there are loads of Spanish-speakers (Mexicans) I don't know if that would be a problem for me to improve my English. I would like to really get in touch with native americans who speak really the American English as their mother tongue, but in SB I suppose there are also native americans right?

I asked about the lifestyle of SB because now that I'll have the opportunity to live in USA for some months, I would like to live as americans do, you know what I mean? and I don't know if I will know how the american lifestyle is in SB. The problem is that there aren't English schools for foreigners in small non-touristic cities
As I already have a quite high level of English, the best way for me would be to live in an American family without taking any classes, but that's almost impossible because any agency looks for a family for you if you don't go to their academy.

Thank you once again!!

[misplaced1]

I'd think Santa Barbara would be a beautiful place to fine tune your English.

[Adriatica]

In that case, SBCC would be a very good place for what you're looking for.