After My Experience Abroad
This past Fall in Madrid has been a crazy experience. There was good and bad, as to be expected. I really enjoyed being around a new and different culture. However, I did not enjoy my educational experience as much as my experience at U of L. The professors didn’t speak English as well as I would have hoped, but I expected there to be a bit of a language barrier at times so this was not the cause of my problems. The cause was that most of my professors just flat out didn’t teach us anything in the classroom. Then we would have homework assignments over material we didn’t cover in class. Most of the class time was spent talking about the professors’ personal experiences, instead of going over the course material. One of my professors would only go over theoretical material in class. The only stuff he would cover is basically definitions. Then, somehow, we were supposed to figure out how to use this material to solve practical homework problems that were all math. How am I supposed to solve a mathematical problem using a definition? It was impossible to do. I’m not saying this because I do not want people to study abroad because I do. It was a great experience overall, it was just the school that caused me troubles. I would advise to take classes as easy as you possibly could and do not take courses for your major abroad. You will not learn most of the material while you abroad, at least in Spain. The professors there don’t want to teach, they just want to do their research. The administration at my school, UC3M, was horrible too. At the beginning of the semester I had to get some paperwork signed to prove I was enrolled in courses at the school. I went to the international office where I was supposed to get the paperwork filled out. The people at that office then sent me to a different office. I was then sent to a different office by this second office. Then the third office told me I needed to go back to the first office I visited. I went back to the first office and talked to a different person and then they filled out my paperwork. It was just that kind of stuff that made things difficult. People didn’t want to do their job, so they told me to go somewhere else, I’ve never had something like that happen to me at U of L. After reading this it probably doesn’t seem like I enjoyed my time there, but that’s not the case. I actually loved my time there. I made tons of friends from all different countries such as Spain, Germany, UK, and Italy. I want others to go abroad like I did, but I want them to have a fair warning that their school experience is going to be a lot tougher than it is at U of L and it isn’t because the classes are harder. It’s just a different culture and almost different world. Don’t let this get you down though, you will still have the time of your life there