Welcome week is over and we have had time to enjoy and explore Sevilla with our new international friends! Now it’s time for work. Let me tell you guys a little about my program and what you should expect. As part of the dual business degree program all of my courses are set so there is really no room for me to choose other class options. All of the dual-degree students have the same schedule with some minor differences. For example, I am taking an operations management course and Taylor and Karlie, my fellow dual-degree mates, are taking a required theology course. So the start of my semester has been pretty hectic. I am currently taking 6 courses and an extra mandatory Spanish course so you can say my schedule is pretty packed. My classes include operations management (favorite class btw), management control, economic policy, marketing 101, corporate finance, macroeconomics, and finally my Spanish class.

There are a couple big differences in the way class schedules work for the dual-degree students compared to other international/Erasmus students at ULA. For one, the dual degree students have no say when it comes to choosing our classes, therefore we can’t choose our own schedules. This is kind of the worst part of being part of a set business program because I’m usually stuck on campus all day for the majority of the week. Monday’s and Tuesday’s I have classes from 9am-9pm so my day starts from 7am when I leave home and ends at 10 when I get home. The campus is quite far from the city center so if you don’t have a car it will take about 30-40 min to get there with a public bus if you don’t take the morning shuttle. Being at school that long is one of the downsides of not being able to structure your own schedule but I guess you have all day to study right…  I usually head to the library or stay in the lunchroom and hang out with my friends. By the time I get home at night all I do is eat dinner and head straight to sleep because I’m so exhausted. The one good thing is that I have Thursdays off so I usually visit the city center, get some work done, and go tutor in the afternoon. My Thursdays are usually the best part of the week because I get to sleep in a little later and sometimes I get to eat lunch with my host family before going to work. Overall, I like my classes and I do enjoy hanging out with the international students during breaks but the campus is pretty small so there is only so much you can do. Let’s just say you can’t get up and walk along the lake or hang out in the quad. Staying on campus that long is just tiring and by the end of the day you wish you had taken a mini siesta. One thing I did discover is that there are some couches in building G, so if you ever need a nap just head there and you’ll definitely find international students there.

My first few weeks of school have been a bit tiring but also pretty interesting. There will always be things I want to change but as part of the first cohort of dual degree students I guess I have to deal with these minor (sometimes feel like major) inconveniences. But hey! At least I enjoy my walks home every night in beautiful Sevilla.

 

Where are you from? – Chicago What are you studying? – International Business

I was asked these questions about 200 times my first day of exchange and by the end of the day I knew where all the international students are from and what they study. My first day as an exchange student at Loyola Universidad Andalucia was pretty great. I met students from the U.S., Sweden, Greece, Germany, Argentina, Poland, Belgium, France, Italy, Cyprus, Mexico and of course the Netherlands which makes up half the exchange student population. Although we all speak different languages and have completely different cultures we all have one thing in common. We are all foreigners in Spain. We spent the first couple days together exploring the streets of Seville, drinking tintos and cervezas, eating tapas, and trying to figure out which bus goes where. The best part about being on exchange, other than living in beautiful Sevilla, is meeting other exchange students that understand the difficulty of being foreigners. The best way to broaden your international relations is to go on exchange. From what I’ve witnessed, Erasmus students are a little wild but pretty great. Go travel. Go study. Come to Sevilla!