A Semester in Madrid 🇪🇸

¡Hola buenas!

During my sophomore spring semester (Spring 2025), I decided to study abroad in the historic and vibrant city of Madrid. Having taking Spanish for four years in middle/high school, Spain was the perfect destination for me to continue exploring Spanish culture and language.

Academics 🖥️

I took classes at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), a public university with a large offering of engineering classes in English. This allowed me to continue completing computer science coursework while abroad.

While abroad, I took three technical courses: Operating Systems, Artificial Intelligence, and Interactive Ecosystems (a product design class). I also took a class called Spanish Art Masters in Madrid Museums (read more about it on my Fun Courses page).

While it was a bit difficult to make local friends, I got the opportunity to design a product with a few classmates for my Interactive Ecosystems class. It was fun getting to work with people from various different countries, including a local student and a student on exchange from France.

Cultural Experience 💃

Being stuck in Madrid during a major European apagón (blackout) was one of the craziest experiences of my life. The subways were shut down, buses were overloaded, traffic lights were out, and I was stuck on my university’s campus. After finally squeezing onto a bus at campus and riding it to its final stop, I realized it would be pretty much impossible to get onto another bus that could take me the rest of the way home. So, I ended up spending 90 minutes walking back from the bus station under the hot Madrid sun alongside probably thousands of people while trying to catch a little bit of phone signal every once in a while to check the map. What really stuck with me was how calm most Spaniards were during the blackout, sitting outside sipping beer for hours while waiting for the power to come back on. Despite having a couple final projects due just a few days later, watching everyone spend the time to relax inspired me to slow down too. In the end, I spent a chill and memorable afternoon playing card games with my roommates, which is really the ideal Spanish way of life.

You can’t spend six months in spain without soccer (football) ⚽️. I watched Atleti vs. Barça in the Copa del Rey semifinals live at the stadium and went bar hopping to watch the Copa del Rey finals between Barça and Real Madrid. As a Barça fan, I was definitely very happy after both games (the local fans in Madrid were much less so). But my favorite soccer experience was when I happened to be in Bilbao on the same say Athletic Club played Man United in the Europa League semis. I guess one of the charms of a slightly smaller city is that it really felt like the entire city was there to support their team. Every single person (plus balconies, and even some trees) I saw that day had at least one piece of Athletic Club merch, and the entire street was filled with people trying to watch the game for blocks on end. That was definitely one of my favorite experiences in Spain, and was one of the many reasons that made me fall in love with Bilbao.

Travels ✈️

Of course, no study abroad experience in Europe is complete without many weekend trips. I had the opportunity to visit 25 cities around Spain and Europe, and each trip added its own flavor to the way I see the world. Pick a marker on the map below to see what stuck with me the most from each city.

Personal & Professional Growth 💡

Last but not least, I think I grew a lot through my study abroad experience.

One of my goals was also to improve my Spanish abilities. Unfortunately, one downside of being in such a large city like Madrid is that most people speak English and will try to speak English with you when they realize you’re a foreigner. As a result, I really didn’t get to speak as much Spanish as I hoped. However, I found a great resource during my language learning process called Dreaming Spanish, which is basically Spanish YouTube but they speak slightly slower. My favorite thing about it is that the site actually has interesting videos about interesting topics, rather than most “educational level” language videos on YouTube that feel like I’m watching something meant to entertain four-year-olds. While I didn’t get to fully practice Spanish during my study abroad, my time in Spain has made me very motivated to continue improving my Spanish abilities and hopefully achieve fluency.