Madrid: challenging but memorable Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The workload at Carlos III was very demanding. Attendance was taken at every class and you generally had HW for each class meeting, ranging from busy work, to readings, and essays. Classes were held Mon. - Thurs. The experiences students had with direct enroll classes depended a lot on the class and professor. Professors in the CEH courses were pretty clear about their expectations, but direct enroll classes were a little bit less structured than I was used to at Nova (ie. randomly would assign things, or no work until the end of the semester, but a ton of it). I learned a lot in the CEH classes, but they were definitely demanding so you have to consider that. The teachers really don't markup grades at all. This isn't terrible since our grades don't transfer directly, but know that you won't get the equivalent of an A as easily as you could here.

On-site administration of your program

Strengths: program size (nice and small so you get individual attention and everyone gets very close); varied directors (1 native Spaniard, 1 "immigrant", and 1 who did the same program a few years ago) Weaknesses: opportunities for us to practice Spanish

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

My house was in a great location, so I would rate that a 5, but my host was rarely around for me to speak with. I ate dinner by myself almost every night even if she was home because she would eat when she was out and then hang out in her room.

I really liked having the partial meal plan (get an abono for the cafeteria to eat lunch). A lot of students who were on the full meal plan ended up buying some food anyways. They should have a component where students are given money to do food shopping for snacks or food to prepare for breakfast and lunch on the weekends because hosts weren't very attentive to that as they have different eating habits.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

We had some awesome day and weekend trips: Segovia, Toledo, La Gomera, and Barcelona.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

I felt very safe. Girls had to become accustomed to piropos and learn how to handle them, but I never encountered any problems.

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

While they encouraged us to speak Spanish all the time we ended up not doing it all the time. In classes we were often lectured to, rather than engaged in conversation. Depending on the availability of your host some people may have been able to improve their Spanish more. Also, most of the volunteer opportunities were focused on us helping others with English rather than improving our Spanish.

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• Host Family

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• Host Family

• Location
• Cultural activities planned by program

• Home stay interaction
• Language exchanges in SPANISH