Fantastiche! Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The workload was very manageable. It was enough to keep me involved in my classes, but it wasn't so much that I wasn't able to focus attention on the experience of living abroad for almost four months. The grading system was adequate. The teaching methods were pretty straight forward. Since the classes were in English for American students, the educational system in our classes seemed to have almost been tailored for American students. It wasn't too much of a shock to be studying at a foreign university.

On-site administration of your program

Accessibility was pretty good. It wasn't always convenient to contact the AIFS office though. The hours they kept was a little strange. The program size was good. Unfortunately, by the end of the program, we didn't have much faith in the ability of the Salzburg AIFS office staff to help us solve any problems we had. For example: we had a number of housing issues at the Internationales Kollege that the AIFS office staff seemed unwilling to help us resolve.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Internationales Kollege left a bit to be desired. The facility staff was useless. The facilities (particularly the clothes washer and dryer) were grossly inadequate (there was one washer and one dryer for probably 300 students in the complex). The kitchen areas were small and did not encourage interaction with other students. The location itself was poor, IK was too far away from the center of the city and the campus. Also, IK did not have a cleaning staff. I feel that it was unfair to have students at IK pay the same amount as students in some of the other dorm complexes around Salzburg. Lastly, most of the students living at IK were not from Austria, so our ability to socialize with local students was very limited.

I should specify that my five star rating has nothing to do with AIFS. I just feel that the food in Salzburg is wonderful! There are plenty of restaurant options throughout the city and the markets are convenient as well. The debit card that would give us money every month that we could use towards food expenditures did not always work on time, which could be frustrating. Also, some of the food stops during AIFS excursions left a lot to be desired.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

The field trips and excursions were all pretty good. Salzburg and the surrounding parts of Europe are fantastic!

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

Salzburg is by far one of the safest feeling cities I have ever visited in Europe. To my knowledge, none of the students had any real problems with safety issues. Though I didn't experience any health issues personally, I understand that the couple of health incidents that did occur during our program were dealt with adequately and promptly. The only problems that I knew of was the fact that if you were very sick with something common like the flu, you either had to go to class or go to the doctor (which could be very expensive). You could not miss class because you had food poisoning unless you went to the doctor, which is not a great option.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

The only thing that keeps this score low is that most Austrians speak English and it almost seems like they prefer to speak to you in English rather than try to work with you at your German. The German course was good!

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• Dorm

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• Americans
• International Students