My university in Madrid is named Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.

This is one of the most important University in Madrid. There are 5 campuses :

-       Alcorcón

-       Fuenlabrada

-       Manuel Becerra

-       Móstoles

-       Vicálvaro.

Each campus has a specific study domain. So, as I am studying Business, I have been assigned to the campus of  Vicálvaro. It is situated out of Madrid, and it takes aorund forty-five minutes by metro, to go there.

For the first day, we all had a meeting at 10AM, in the main amphitheater. All the erasmus was here. During this meeting the person in charge of the campus Vicalvaro, and the person in charge of the erasmus students have presented themselves, and have presented the University.

Then, we received and completed all the papers to choose our courses.

 The university organizes in each begining of semester two weeks during which erasmus people can try diffrents courses to choose the best ones. So during the two first weeks, we have try differents courses to finally choose the ones we had prefered.

So we have choose :

Computer sciences applied to marketing

-       Production management

-       Marketing management

-       Introduction au marketing

-       History of the commercial culture and society

-       Audiovisuel communication and Education

All these courses was « lecture courses », only the teacher was speaking and we have exercises to do for the class after. We also have presentations to do for the end of the semester.

Cultural differences

We have observed a few differences between French and Spanish classes.

First of all, spanish students speak very very loud in class, even when the teacher is speaking. There is not the same respect than in France.

Then, Spanish students use their phones, drink, and even eat in class. I remember that one day someone brought a box of pasta and ate it during the class.

I also saw that Spanish student come very rarely in class. In my Production Management class for exemple, during the courses the class was just half full, and the day of the mid-term exam, there wasn’t enough place for everybody in the same class.

Finally, people can come and leave the class at any time, without informing the teacher.

So I think that the University is very different of our school.

Social life

There are many programs for erasmus student. There is the ESN club that organizes trips, and parties. For exemple, I have been in Toledo with them. This is a trip that they had organize and everybody could participate for 25€.

There is also a sport club where we registered with Anne-Laure. We can go every time we want and there is also Salsa, Dance, Boxe, Step, classes where we can go, and meet Spanish students.

But in general Spanish people are together and don’t mix very much with erasmus students. Most of them don’t speak English very well, and do not want to do efforts.