ICADE

When I first arrived in Madrid I had an everyday knowledge of the language and although I encountered some problems the majority of time it was fine. But for the first few months of university I was lost, along with my colleagues. Because we are considered normal students of the university, we are in classes with spanish students (some of which had spent the first two years of the programme in Dublin, while others had spent the first two years in the UK, France or Germany, along with students from these countries). Then after the first semester we had to do an internship and I found that quite difficult too regarding the language aspect. But this year, the final year of the programme, I've had little or no problems at all with language at the university. We even had to write our thesis here in spanish and I remember back to first year thinking "oh my god that'll be impossible" and well in the end it has been a challenge but surpassable. I handed mine in to the office today, completed and bound. Yes!

In the beginning it was hard and at times very frustrating to communicate because I found I knew less spanish than I orginally thought. But VERY slowly I found myself getting more and more comfortable and that improvement still continues with me. Classes are the most frustrating part as my teachers speak very fast and it doesnt help that they also have horrible handwriting so reading what they write on the board is also a struggle. But like I said before gradually it improves and I find myself improving little by little. Today I feel I can sit through a class and at least get the larger part of what is taught in class. Socially, communication has not been as much as a struggle with the exception of the use of a lot of slang by spanish students my age. But I also find that they are more than willing and eager to teach you their slang if you ask them. Just be careful on when to use it! (i.e. NOT on a job interview or when talking to a teacher)

I had a decent level of Spanish when I arrived in Madrid, and was determined to speak as little English as possible throughout my time here. As a result I had few problems, but I don't recommend ICADE (my programme in particular) for those with a low level, as it's not easy and few exceptions are made. The Erasmus students are treated rather more favourably, with less hours of class, including some with English as the language of instruction.

Before spending a semester in Madrid, I had studied Spanish for nine years at school and had spend some time trvelling trough Spain! Indeed I didn't have major problems to understand or speak the language! Yet, I didn't speak as fluently as I wished to! Spending those 6 months in the country allowed me acquire a relly high level of spoken and written spanish. I'm at ease in every situation now....

My experience living in Madrid and studding my MBA is great. I am from Uruguay, small country, and I worked the last six years for an American company. The decision to come to Spain to do my MBA was because I want to improve in my profession and grow like a person and my career. I thought that Europe will help me to increase my experience and open more my mind.

Since our classes were held outside the ICADE buildings, we had to find language social interaction elsewhere - in the daily life and in the nightlife. For this Madrid is perfect! Very open-minded and social people, that love to talk to you, as long as you take the initiative to talk in Spanish with them first.