Suffolk University, Madrid Campus

The euro exchange rate!!! Cell phones are outrageous, even if you are calling someone on the same block! Housing in the city was expensive about $1000/month/student. Travel- really a lot more, I don't travel to other coutries on the weekends when I am in the US :) Nightlife- there are way more hours in the night that they party in Madrid which = more hours to spend $$ and the drinks are pretty expensive. The nightlife scene can really drain your bank account. I went out a lot when I first got there, would get home at 9/10am from the night before with empty pockets, sleep until 6pm that night, and do it all over. This was a great time, but after awhile i realized how much $$ it was costing. So I changed it up, instead of going out at night I went to bed early and hopped on a random city bus early (get unlimited metro pass) in the morning and went to explore the city alone. I ran into the coolest places and bought the greatest stuff. The money I spent on drinks now went to buy clothes and other souveniers.

Several groups of people rented apartments through the guidence of the university. The University helped them locate the apartment and with any problems that occured during their stay. The dormitory I lived in was a bit to regulated and had quite a few rules. With the help of the campus and the greater freedom, I would prefer to rent an apartment if I was to do it all over again.

The clothes are all great, girls, dont buy a wardrobe when you befiore leaving! Bring underwear and bras, clothes in spain are aawesome and cheap! I also decided that I am only going to geet the oppertunities to travel like this once so I better live it up and not miss a thing. SO I am a little more frivilous than in the states.

If you want to learn about Spanish culture and history either take History of Spain with Shaw or Spanish Cultural Studies with Paco. You will get so much out of either class. Even though they give massive amount of work to do, especially Paco's class, its all worth it at the end. Also, if you want to learn Spanish, take a lot of spanish classes as well.

I think there should be more of a community between the international students and the american students. the american students tended to stay within there own and the international students as well. I would say an exchange program within the two groups should be created.

Make sure that you plan you schedule according to how active you plan on being once in Spain i.e. how much you are going to travel and go out. It may sound silly and I was someone who said "I can do it all" but traveling to different coutntries for 3 day weekends and partying into the morning hours in Madrid made things more stressful than necessary. just be realistic, you are not going to be home and there are SO many things to do

The attendance policy was really strict and while I was there they would not let you get up to use the restroom if you were in class, not reasonable.

The traveling aspect is more expensive while studying abroad, because u have so many places u want to visit and only one semester in which to do it. So overall i traveled a lot more in one semester here than i would normally do while at home, but it is very worth it.