About halfway into my second semester abroad, I wanted to take the time to comment on and share my thoughts and experiences in a Spanish university.
Schedules here are fixed, depending on the program of study and the student’s group. For example, the day is broken in to two time blocks: mornings from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and afternoons from 4:00 to 8:30 p.m. Then, depending on your program, you either have class in the morning or in the afternoon, never both. This allows for better planning of the students' days, considers their preferences and allows them to get part-time jobs.
In addition, each student in the same group (there are about 3-4 groups per program) has the same classes with the same people. This means they don’t need to go through the headache of picking classes and organizing a schedule for each person. That said, it’s great that they give international students a week to “test out” classes and change them if we don’t like one or would rather another subject.
Classrooms at la Universidad Autonoma de Madrid are small, which means groups never exceed 40 students. This brings me to the next point: public universities (like Autonoma) are in higher demand and more reputable than their private counterparts. Private university tuitions can go as high as 24 000 € (about $35,000 CAD) a year. At first, it seemed ironic that someone would pay that much for “lower quality” education, but the more I thought of it, the more I understood their take on post-secondary education. If you’re good enough to get into the “high quality” public universities, the government will invest in you, which makes their tuition only a few hundred euros a year.
The exam period here in Spain lasts about two weeks, during which you only have exams as it is back home. The exam schedule for the entire year is posted in September, which allows you to plan trips and flights ahead of time. Typical exams here last between an hour and an hour and a half. You won’t find any three hour exams, like at Carleton.
Also, having a final project instead of an exam here is also possible (it happened in two of my classes last semester). “Accumulative exams” are also very popular at the Autonoma. Here's how it works; after each couple of chapters you go over in class, you have a test, and if you score 60% or higher on it, you will be exempt from doing that section of the final exam. This means you can reduce the amount of finals you have. However, if you wish to increase your grade for a section, you can simply retake it during the exam. I found this evaluation technique reduces stress and quite smart on behalf of the teachers, since they don’t need to organize other midterm times with students who can’t make it or are sick. They just tell them to show up at the exam. What I really enjoy back home, but didn’t have here, are practice exams. The teachers may tell you the format of the exam ahead of time, but that’s about it.
Overall, the schooling system in Madrid seems less organized than back home, however I believe the classes and exams are easy to prep for and follow. It’s also great to have group projects in every class, since it allows me to meet and get to know local students and see how they work and tackle projects. If you’re a BIB student coming to Madrid, you will be reassured by this final anecdote.
In my Labour Economics class this semester, the teacher kindly advised us he wouldn’t be using PowerPoint presentations during his lectures, which means we needed to write down everything he said. At that point my jaw dropped, my heart started to beat really quickly and the only comforting thought I could find was the option of dropping this class. I calmly went to speak with him after our first class and expressed my concerns for note taking in Spanish. He looked at me, asked where I was from and responded with “Don’t worry, you’re a North American student, you will still manage to do better than the locals, even with the language barrier.” And with that promise, I kept the class and have found my Spanish has greatly improved since!