Before deciding on a university during my gap year the first condition that I had was that they had to offer a chance to study or work abroad for a year. Before I knew what course I wanted to study I had already decided that it would have to have a sandwich year. I made sure of this because I had, and still have, a strong passion for travelling and discovering not only new places, but how I cope in different situations and environments. One of the questions I asked at my interview with Coventry University was what international opportunities they offered. I could not have made a better decision in deciding on this particular course and choosing Spain for my year abroad. I mean what more could I have asked for in a city that has it all; endless sun, food and culture.
This year I had the opportunity through Coventry University, to spend the year abroad studying in another country. After much confusion with my application I settled on Spain. Luckily my classmate, who came with, and I decided to plan ahead and booked our apartment in the neighbourhood of La Latina three months prior to arriving in Madrid. This took a lot of stress off as we knew we had a place to stay when we got there and it made it easy for us to then organize everything else for our study placements.
Having lived away from home for six years now already I was not daunted by the idea of living on my own in a new city and country for a whole year. In fact, I was extremely excited. It seemed like another great adventure of my student life. Coming from Zambia and moving to the UK at an early age helped me to gain confidence in travelling alone, living without family and relying on myself for everything from accommodation to transportation and travel.
I think this year in a new country helped me grow not only in terms of my education, but also expanded by knowledge of culture, language and a completely different lifestyle.
Initially I was a bit daunted by the city and my main worry was commuting to and from university and also throughout the city. However, the Spanish public transportation makes this all extremely easy, especially for students. My transport card (only €20 a month) gave me unlimited access to the metro, buses and inter-city trains. I know this is one the things I will miss the most when back in the UK. Travelling here is incredibly cheap compared to back home and is one the reasons I was able to explore so much of Madrid and Spain while here.
Studying
During my first semester I was based in Universidad Europea de Madrid located on the outskirts of Madrid. This meant a long one-and-a-half-hour commute to and from university twice a week before sunrise. The strangest thing I found about my classes here was how none related to journalism and how they all began at 8:30 in the morning. This meant waking up at 6:00 in order to get to the bus station and reach university for my morning classes. One of the things I had expected at this university was more support for international students, which I did not seem to find, and I came to find that it was very difficult to interact with many of the students there. However, I overcame this by making friends outside of university, with fellow Erasmus students studying at different universities around Madrid. This was great because we had so much to share about our different courses and universities and compare our experiences.
During that semester I only partook in two modules as the other three I was enrolled for did not relate to my degree and I felt that I did not want to study those particular subjects. Looking back, I do not regret that decision as I was able to pick up more modules at my second university that related to my main degree.
My first module was advertising and as strange as it was I really enjoyed it and it allowed me to develop a more creative way of thinking and working. As advertising is a fast-paced and competitive field it was hard to keep up at first but the lecturer was very encouraging and helped me overcome my initial hesitation of taking this module.
My second one was Spanish and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It allowed me to really immerse myself in the Spanish culture which I was so eager to explore before I came and it opened up a way for me to communicate with local Spanish people and practice my skills. It was a great module and I managed to improve my communication in Spanish by speaking to people on a day-to-day basis such as when I would go to the supermarket or ask for directions on the street. The funny thing was many people would stop me on the street asking for directions thinking I was a native Spanish speaker, often thinking I was from latin America. I found this highly amusing and very flattering. Every day I try to read some easy Spanish text or engage in some form of conversation with someone to improve my speaking.
During my first semester I travelled quite a bit because my university schedule gave me the time to do so. I visited Valencia, San Sebastien and nearby cities like Toledo and Segovia. During these trips I went with friends that I had made here and it was a great experience to learn about how people came to be in Madrid, whether to study or work and also gave me a chance to make international contacts in my field of study as well.
In these first few months I made more friends outside of university because our university was located so far out of Madrid and most students either lived there or commuted and all would leave right after class, making it a bit difficult to interact outside of the classroom environment. However, in this sense, my second semester was a lot better. Most of my friends were in the same module as me and I felt more in a university environment similar to that in England.
My second semester has been a lot busier than expected. I am enrolled for five modules and each one has weekly assignments. It took a few weeks to adapt to this but I have managed to cope with it. The other difference that I noticed when comparing Carlos iii and Universidad Europea with Coventry was the teaching styles. Whereas my Coventry modules were very much practical-based all of mine here are based more on theory than practical and this was a little hard to adapt to because of the many essays and presentations required every week but through time management I managed to successfully adapt to the new workload.
My modules are International journalism 1 and 2, media and violence, documentary film-making and media landscape. The first three are journalism modules whilst the other two are more media based. Not surprisingly I enjoy my journalism modules more as I learned so much more about becoming an international journalist which is something I have been thinking about going into. Furthermore, media and violence has really helped me understand how careful journalists have to be when reporting on stories and how the words they use can come across to mean so many different things. I was lucky enough to have such a great lecturer in this module as she is an expert on the Syrian crisis and coming from Syria herself, she had a lot to teach us as young journalists.
I can definitely say that I enjoyed my studies at Carlos iii a lot more than my previous university and the classmates I had were a great support system and have turned into some of my closest friends here.
Living
Living here has been a new experience entirely. I mean living in Madrid, one of the most famous cities in the world, has been unreal. I have been lucky enough to live in one of the liveliest neighborhoods with such beautiful views of the city. La Latina is located very near the city center which made it perfect for my commutes to university, and located right behind my street is the Rio Manzanares and the Atletico Madrid football stadium which I visited often.
Although my housemate and I decided not to live in a shared house with more students we have still led quite the student lifestyle; going to Erasmus events to meet fellow students, experiencing the Madrid nightlife and discovering the city on a budget. In all honesty having an apartment was great because we could come home and de-stress and also gave us a nice quiet environment to get our work done. My neighbourhood has some excellent eating places which I made sure to try. One of the first things I had decided before coming to Spain was how I wanted to immerse myself in the culture. I attended a salsa class, tried all the local specialities, went to watch a Real Madrid football game in my second month here and got lost in the city on long walks. The beautiful thing about Madrid is how there is something around every corner to see, whether it is a historical building or statue, a trendy café or a unique tapas bar.
Working
From October last year I decided to try and find a job to earn some money and to use up some of the free time I had. It was quite difficult to find anything related to journalism because of my obvious disadvantage with the language. However, I did not know, but soon came to learn, that there is a high demand for native English speakers to give private lessons to Spanish children. I signed up to a babysitting website which my sister told me was the best way to find clients and three days after I uploaded my profile I had a family asking me to play and teach their 6-year-old son, Alvaro, English in a casual environment.
After meeting them I agreed to babysit twice a week for an hour and a half each day. It was a great way to see more of Madrid, as they lived far north of the city, however it also meant an hour and fifteen-minute commute back and forth, which was a bit tiring and was the reason I had to stop in December, after I realized that my next semester would be busier.
Alvaro was a very cute boy who became more mischievous the more he got used to me and was sometimes hard to control. His level of English was really low and he found it easy to understand me but had some difficulty speaking English back to me. This was one of the biggest issues we had but luckily, by the time I had finished lessons with him he could converse more easily in English with his parents.
At the same time, I was doing the same job for a little girl, Sara, a bit closer to where I lived. It was only twenty minutes away by metro and so I would go to her house twice a week and read her books, play with her and engage in conversation with her. Sara was a lot more fluent in English than Alvaro was which made it very easy to talk to her and on most days she would organize activities for us to do.
For both kids I really enjoyed the experience and in a way I got to look into Spanish family life which is different than in Zambia or the UK. Overall I really enjoyed babysitting and I think if I had to go to a foreign country again for studies I would definitely work as a babysitter as a side job. It is a great way to earn extra money with no additional skills required other than a proficiency in English.
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After going through this year I have learned a lot about what I want for myself in terms of my career and my studies for next year at Coventry University. I am very interested in becoming an international journalist that can work globally. I am hoping to do this by continuing languages at Coventry in order to be able to adapt to living or working in foreign countries. Furthermore, I have made great contacts with people involved in this field through the universities I have studied at here and I know I can always contact them for support and help. Regarding my final project, I think after living in Spain I would like to work on something related to my home country, Zambia. This is because I feel that it is something unique that I should exploit and it would further enhance my international experience working in media and journalism. Having done a work placement in Prague last year, and now having spent a year in Spain, I believe I can use all this international experience to showcase my adaptability as an international journalist.
I would advise any student who is thinking of taking an Erasmus year to not think but just do. It has been one of the greatest experiences and one that I will not be able to replicate throughout my life. I now understand why students a year above me would come back so enthusiastic about their year abroad because the places you get to visit and the people you get to see are full of adventure and new memories and nowhere else but on Erasmus do you get the chance to meet students from such different countries and backgrounds. This not only widens your horizons in terms of meeting new people but also learning about new cultures and languages while on your journey of discovering the culture of the city you are in.
Eyscapes 