You may be wondering, "What is it like? What will the real experience be? What kind of students join ILISA?" Read about the experiences of people who have been here on our 'Featured client' page.

Every month, we have another student sharing his or her experience at ILISA. Links to past features can be found at the bottom of the page.

Scott Christofferson, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, studied at ILISA for 4 weeks. Thorwald Westmaas, ILISA director, spoke with him over lunch during his last day of classes regarding his experience at ILISA.

Scott's primary motivation for studying Spanish was his love of the language and travel, although the encouragement of his Spanish-speaking friends and the hope that it might open up greater opportunities on the job-front were also factors. He had taken an intensive Spanish program at Yale while studying law but recognizes that "you have to maintain your skills." After taking the bar exam he had some time off before returning to consulting work at McKinsey so he started looking on-line for an immersion program abroad. "Since I've worked and lived overseas before, I know that in-country study is really very effective. Several of my friends have been to Costa Rica and they all raved about it, so that's where I focused my search."

Scott reviewed language school websites, then narrowed the decision to several schools. "Your website is in a league of its own, but even better, it was backed up by a very responsive registrar. I asked a lot of questions and would often get an answer the same day. Once I asked about the student composition at ILISA and I got an Excel spreadsheet back with graphs and everything. Pretty cool." Since Scott was an advanced student, he was concerned that the program might not offer classes for higher levels. "I checked out your reference list and the feedback of former students helped me make my final decision for ILISA. The funny thing is that after I registered, I found out that two more of my Yale classmates were going to ILISA."

Scott continues, "I really enjoyed the study program. I had previously seen almost all the grammar stuff, so my main goal was to improve my fluency and build my vocabulary, especially in the area of business, management and finance. I took the Group-4 plus program and my afternoon teachers would bring articles and stories about topics of my area interest and skillfully, almost playfully, create a very effective learning process. For homework, I would read the newspaper business section and bring my own articles to class. Time flew by!"

"Of course, I also learned new grammar structures like the imperfect subjunctive but the real improvement is my enhanced fluency and vocabulary: Before, I could watch a TV program in Spanish and understand only snippets. Now I can really follow them. I think that's a very good result for 4 weeks of study."

"Costa Rica didn't disappoint me either. The people are genuinely friendly. I stayed with a big host family and we would chat for hours. Talking with the 22-year old son also gave me a vocabulary I didn't learn at ILISA. Needless to say that in a country like Costa Rica, you have more places to visit than weekends to travel. Luckily, the office staff was always there to help us set up weekend travel arrangements, get us a rental car, hotel reservations, etc., so that part went as smoothly as possible."

Scott was looking for a program that was both serious and enjoyable. He says he found both at ILISA.

a '91 T-bird now in marketing

Retired submarine Captain US Navy