Great Opportunity

The IES Abroad Madrid program was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not only was the city of Madrid clean, entertaining, and my favorite city I've been to, but the citizens were some of the friendliest I encountered during my entire stay in Europe and most of my experiences in the USA as well. The program allowed us to mingle with local Spanish students while exploring various monuments and points of interest around the city. Also, my host family made the transition to life in Spain very smooth. While they didn't speak English, the ability to practice Spanish and learn the culture in more of an informal setting was very beneficial in the long run. The first couple weeks were a little challenging, but it was extremely worthwhile in the end. Overall, I did not have many complaints about the program. One of the few was the transition to having attendance policies for classes, which is very unlike most universities here in the states, but I understand the reasoning behind it and it forced us to focus on class, but the workload outside of class wasn't overbearing and allowed us to explore and enjoy my time in Madrid.