After Completing Studies at Berklee Valencia, Many Students Decide to Go Back for More

For some students, doing one program at Berklee’s campus in Valencia, Spain, just isn’t enough. Of the thousands of students who’ve studied there since it opened in 2012, several became repeat customers. Some initially chose to go to Valencia because it was convenient; others were looking for a change. But these aren’t the reasons they went back, or signed up for another program.

“I finished my first year and I was like, ‘I don’t want to leave,’” says Paula Coria, who attended three programs—the Spain Summer Performance Program, First Year Abroad, and Berklee Study Abroad—before arriving in Boston in January to complete her film scoring major. To be sure, many students and alumni say Berklee Valencia and Berklee Boston each offer distinctive experiences. Though both campuses provide high-quality instruction, their cultures differ—at times, significantly. Part of the reason for these differences is that each campus is influenced by the national culture in which it resides. Another part boils down to the fact that Berklee Valencia is a smaller community than is Berklee Boston. Both campuses have their strengths, which are often overlapping or complementary, but for many students, spending as much time as possible in Berklee Valencia was the right call. Here’s why.

The Opportunities for Growth

Whether it’s playing in-house concerts, going to jam sessions in town, or creating unique projects, current and former students say Berklee Valencia is full of possibilities.

“What I love about Berklee Valencia is it’s a place that is abundant with yeses. If you are willing to ask the question, the ‘yes’ is there,” says Zoe Schneider B.M. '18, M.A. '19, who hails from Chicago and did two Berklee Study Abroad semesters before going back for a master’s degree in global entertainment and music business. 

She says that by going to Valencia for her third and fourth semesters, she was able to capitalize on opportunities that are normally more competitive in Boston. “You can explore all of them in a more manageable way in Valencia, so that when you’re back in Boston, you know what you’re doing and you can just explode,” says Schneider, who credits the confidence and skills she learned at Berklee Valencia with how she’s approached her career, which includes her current job working in marketing and publishing at Epic Games, makers of Fortnite and other big titles. Schneider says that in Valencia she began looking at things as “Oh, maybe it’s not a ‘no,’ it’s a ‘not yet,’ or a ‘not now,’ or ‘not like this.’”

For German student Linus Markus Held, now 19, Valencia offered plentiful performance opportunities. “You can go into clubs at 18. And you can go to jam sessions and you’re not restricted by the age. And they have a lot of jam sessions there, which are incredible. Every day of the week, you can go somewhere and play,” says Held, who, like his classmate Coria, did Valencia’s summer program, First Year Abroad, and Berklee Study Abroad before coming to Boston.

The Community

Because the Valencia campus is small, there’s an opportunity to connect deeply with other members of the Berklee community.

Coria says that the fact that students from every Valencia program live in the same residence and see each other on campus regularly meant that during her first year she was able to build relationships with her peers as well as with graduate and study-abroad students. “You know that vibe of a big family? I had that from Valencia…. Like, you’re going to feel so warm and so accepted,” says Coria, who originally comes from Madrid.

Vietnamese student Hanni Nguyen, who attended First Year Abroad and Berklee Study Abroad with Coria and Held, says that in addition to making good friends who now form the basis of her friend group in Boston, she also felt close to the faculty. “It’s like the community in villages,” she says. Held agrees: “Just the people, the faculty, were so welcoming and warm.”

The Quality of the Academics

Despite Valencia’s small size, students say it delivers the same big results they’re finding on the Boston campus.

“I was scared of coming [to Boston] and being like, ‘Oh my God, maybe [Valencia] wasn’t as hard as here.’ But no, I know all my stuff,” says Coria.

Classmates Nguyen and Held felt similarly. “All the teachers there are really passionate about what they’re doing, and they’re really good at what they’re doing,” Nguyen says.

Pietro Villani B.M. ’19, M.A. ’21, calls his decision to pursue a master’s degree in Valencia, where he had already completed two summer programs and two rounds of Berklee Study Abroad, the best choice of his life.

“I managed to…gain so much knowledge, [and] meet probably the best professors I ever met—shout out to the music business professors in Valencia!” says Villani, who hails from Italy and Belgium and now works in London as a communications officer at the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP).

Of her time in Valencia, Schneider says she’s “coasting on the results of the efforts I put in in 2015 and 2016. That year that I spent in Berklee [Valencia as an] undergrad, and then…the grad program, is honestly one of the biggest, strongest foundations that I’ve built my current life upon.” Some of her mentors included Emilien Moyon, the director of the Global Entertainment and Music Business program, and Professor Alexandre Perrin. “He made accounting and finance—these subjects that I didn’t really have an interest in—he helped me realize how important they are and made me feel capable of…doing it well, and made it interesting on top of it,” Schneider says.

The City

Of course, the Berklee Valencia experience is bigger than the campus itself. Coloring the entire experience is the city of Valencia, which students and alumni say has incredible food, great weather, efficient public transportation, and more. “There’s this culture of just living life and enjoying it in Spain…and then Valencia is close to the beach and everything is warm. And that even extends to the people,” says Held.

“Valencia is literally the city of music in Spain,” Coria says. She found this to be true both in smaller cultural attractions around town as well as at Fallas, the large, five-day annual celebration in which brass bands play all over the city.

For her as well as for others, the alchemy of the city combined with the Berklee experience created something special. “Valencia,” she says, “is kind of like a fever dream. Everyone tells me that.”