I’ve been in Madrid, Spain for two months now, studying at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in the faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
I landed in Madrid at the end of August, with around two weeks’ time before school started. Little did I know, I’d be spending most of this time apartment searching since I was advised it would be best to do once I was on location.
My hostel was right in the center of Madrid, which allowed me to easily move around, sightsee (a little) and get a feel for the city.
I absolutely love Madrid! The center is always full of people and the more relaxed atmosphere is quite calming in comparison to back home. It does, however, make it more difficult to accomplish administrative tasks since banks and government offices tend to only be open for about three hours a day.
School is different here too. La Universidad Autonoma de Madrid has a high school vibe to it. It is broken down into different buildings for each faculty. The classrooms are much smaller and can only hold up to 40 students. The teachers are more involved with your work and break down every project into smaller tasks. The expectations of students seem to be lower than they are at Carleton too.
I’ve already learned a few lessons since my arrival and below are a few tips and tricks to help you navigate the first steps of your year abroad!
Look into getting your student visa as soon as possible. It takes a long time to process and requires various documents that are not easy to acquire. It's also unnecessary stress before your big departure!
Look into apartments from home, but stay open to the idea of arriving without a place. I stayed in a hostel for two weeks (for around the same price as rent) while searching for a place. It was a little frustrating, but much better than arriving to an apartment in horrible or non existing condition you may have seen and/or started renting online.
Check out your school beforehand. My friends and I figured out transit to school a couple days before our classes started to reduce the stress and the risk of getting lost on our first day.
Make sure you are familiar with the class registration policy for your institution. We were surprised to hear we could not sign up for certain classes we already had on our agreement.