Tiscar Lara will leave UCLA after just a year of study here under an exchange agreement with the University of Madrid, where she is pursuing a PhD in communications. She won't take any degree home with her. She didn't even have an academic adviser during her stay. And yet the experience has had a life-changing impact.

Tiscar is spending her year in the UCLA Film School, studying new media and learning digital production skills such as film editing, web authoring design, and multimedia production. "I studied about these things in Spain," Tiscar says, "but it was all theoretical. When I got here, I started to produce myself. Now I want to continue in production." This was "a very huge turning point," she says.

Although she began noticing posters about opportunities at UCLA when she was still an undergraduate, Tiscar waited to apply until she was in the middle of her doctoral studies. "I found out that they were working at UCLA with a lot of new media. That's why I came here," she says. The curriculum has shown her "the importance of images in communication, from a practical and theoretical point of view."

Tiscar hopes to find work creating educational programs that are enhanced by new media techniques and technology. She may also teach them to others at the university level. And leaving Spain again to work abroad is not out of the question, as she has enjoyed her experiences of international study.

An undergraduate in journalism at the University of Madrid, Tiscar spent her fifth year at Nottingham Trent University in England. Because she studied English there-as well as French and Italian-she had a less difficult adjustment during her second international experience in Los Angeles.

"It wasn't that shocking for me," she says. A resident of The Co-op, which attracts many foreign students because it is inexpensive, Tiscar says: "Everybody's very open, because we're all by ourselves. I like meeting new people. California is a very welcoming place."

Tiscar has also taken advantage of services at the Dashew International Studies Center, which provides a range of programs for students, from language clubs to dinners hosted by faculty. "I think they are doing a great job in helping foreign students to get adjusted here and feel integrated in their environment by providing social and cultural life," Tiscar says.

To repay the favor, she volunteered to help the Center update its website. First, she surveyed international students about what they would like to find on a website, and then she "designed the structure of the site as a magazine for international students." Still under construction, the site will offer detailed descriptions of programs and services, a calendar of events, and links to other websites with information subjects of interest, from immigration to Los Angeles restaurants.

"Whenever someone offers to volunteer," says Mariana Corzo, director of the Center, "I like to first meet with them to see what their interests and their skills are and try to match them with what we do. We talked for a while, and then she came back with a proposal. I was really impressed."

Although Tiscar will have left something behind when she returns to Madrid, she expects to miss UCLA. Compared to the University of Madrid, UCLA has a style of teaching and learning she prefers. "Classes here have fewer people," Tiscar says. "It's more personal. There's also more contact with your professors."

In fact, about the only problem Tiscar has with her exchange experience is that it lasted only a year. "You spend so much time getting used to the place," she says, "learning about the procedures here, how to study, how people deal with their courses. Then you realize that you didn't travel enough or you didn't enjoy the people you met here-you need more time."

Published in Spring 1999, Graduate Quarterly