Universidad de Zaragoza (UZ)

Because I enjoy my independence and university arranged accommodation - both colleges and with a family are double the price or more.

DO NOT STUDY "cursos trimestral/annual de lengua y cultura para extranjeros" language courses at The Departmento de Espanol como lengua extranjera, edificio interfacultades, Universidad de Zaragoza. In short: really bad teaching, no social side, expensive, little improvement to spanish. It is a terrible waste of your money and time. Some teachers have no experience with little training and lack basic personal skills expected of a teacher, classes are poor in most ways. The classes are basic and teacher preparation consists of photocopying textbooks, no actual spanish is used (spanish is always especially written for foreigners) even though we were "upper intermediate" level, there was little real conversation (following models in the textbooks like pre GCSE) and less culture than previous courses in the UK! The courses seem good value - mine was 260 hours for 680 euro which is 9 - 2.15 daily with 30 mins break - but every teacher arrives very late, you take extra breaks and finish the class early so you end up with 3 hours of poor language classes a day. They are able to continue to do this because they advertise heavily. Although the university is public, the spanish government privatised some parts of universities - so these courses are private. Teachers are bad because they are paid less than government run language schools so better/qualified teachers look to teach in reputable institutions, and earn more money. If you need more reason to not do this course, there are no social activities whatsoever to welcome students or encourage mixing. Most students outside classes had not met each other even by the end of the 3 months. The excursions they advertised were 2 days in a row to 2 places about 6 weeks into the course. I reccommend the escuela oficial de idiomas no 1. Although it's only 2 hours a week you will study the same grammar at the same pace as your level in the university school. The teachers are very professional and they are paid by the government so the quality of teaching is very high.

ninguno

Everything is cheaper except mobiles and landlines, but I travelled more than I would at uni at home.

The course was going to be awful. Zaragoza gets VERY COLD in november and december - sub zero every morning/at night.

take advantage of all the things going on - there are so many art and culture events and expositions. Look in CIPAJ, a monthly bulletin of everything going on in Zaragoza area for young people available from tourist info and the CIPAJ centre in Casco Viejo.