Suffolk University, Madrid Campus

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.

It was really nice because the classes are so small so you are able to recieve individual attenetion. My two favorite classes were Spanish Cultural Studies with Paco Frisuelos and Art History with Senora Carmina Galbon. Paco is VERY intelligent and makes you want to learn as well as makes the subject very interesting. Carmina is very fun, makes the students laugh a lot and has a lot of patience! I enjoyed those two particular classes very much!

No, school is school!!

Let me put it this way, don't go to suffolk for extreme insights into classes. Once in a while you will find a professor that can connect your study abroad experience to studies but unfortunaley thats not the norm. Its not that the classes are useless, just not challenging (although I realise while studying abroad this can be an advantage).

Get more professors that work in the real world. The business professors were the exception to the norm and really made me feel I was gaining acedemically from the courses.

Coming from GW, i felt that the courses were not up to college level. I felt like i was taking a bunch of high school courses again. But it was nice for the sample fact that, it made it easier to experience Madrid and the rest of spain, cause we had a lot of free time.

They only give a midterm and a final exam, and i don't believe that is a good system. There is no way to see how u are progressing through the courses, and half way through the semester is too late to fix problems.

I suppose that it is not the Universities fault, but i was a junior in MAdrid and there were not enough classes for me.

I would evaluate the teachers. My spainsh teacher (I think his name was Ahern) was the Worst. I also think that the teachers were very understanding in regards to the international students. They were very flexable when it came to time off to travel.