What is it like to be an international student in Spain? How is a day in the life of a student in a big city or a smaller town? Read the stories of two IE University undergraduate students who came from very different places but found the perfect environment in each one of the IE University campuses: Madrid and Segovia. Keep reading to learn what the advantages of living in different environments are and find out which university experience is the one that fits you best!
Segovia: an international community life
Giulia is a 22-year-old and she was born in Brazil but she grew up in London and Portugal. She’s currently a student of the Bachelor of Digital Media and Communication at the Segovia Campus. She finds one of the best things about Segovia, is the beauty of a city full of history and the fact that you live “five minutes away from any IE student”. “You’re a super short walk from the university so there’s never any stress”, and she gets to enjoy the environment of the old Jewish neighborhood with mostly pedestrian small streets. “It takes you back to when the city was blooming and medieval, and it’s really exciting”.
Even though it might seem like a “small” environment, she gets to set close relationships with mentors and other students. “I’ve been really like because I’ve met Iona, my bachelor director here at IE. She has a vast experience: she’s worked for Sony for many years she held very executive positions, and she’s been kind of a mentor to me for these past years”.
She also highlights the value of the international student body at IE. She studies in a classroom with 30 students from 20 different countries which enrich every moment of the University experience: “every time we’re debating a topic in class, people have 20 completely contrasting views of things that you never thought about before. If we’re discussing anything you might think there’s an obvious answer but you’ll be surprised every time the conversation opens up! That’s something you can’t get anywhere else”.
Madrid: live the life of a big European Capital
Sergio is 20 years old and a second-year student of the BBA at IE University. He was born in South Africa but he lived in different countries such as Angola, Mexico, and Portugal.
He has a professional soccer background playing for the Real Madrid team, and he loves the fact that so many people love that sport at Madrid so he has many friends to share that experience with.
Thanks to the fact that Madrid is a big European capital with many international people but also so well connected with many means of transport such as the high-speed trains that allow you to travel around. Thanks to this he gets to visit many places in Spain and he’s really in love with the country “I got to really enjoy the food and I meet different kinds of people”. He also appreciates the fact that everyone he meets is very proud of being Spanish and very passionate about where they live, and the fact that the people are very welcoming and make you feel at home, wherever you go.
Sergio chose to study at IE University because an international experience was very important to him, and diversity is a big plus: “The skills I developed very well at IE University was definitely teamwork, and working with many different people. So what I developed was how to manage all of these ideas and how I can get people to talk about their ideas and encourage people to share their experiences”. The best thing about the BBA program for Sergio is that it “has a great overview of everything I wanted to do in the future, so it has all of the marketing, so we have all of the business, we have all of the finance, all of the marketing… and I wanted to have something general and then decide throughout the years what I really wanted to do”.
Do you want to learn more about the experience of an international student in Spain? Take a virtual campus tour and start preparing your life at IE Unversity!