Internships in Madrid - Adelante Abroad

I stayed with Adelante for 2 months in Madrid, doing a placement with a local psychiatrist. I had a bit of an unusual situation therefore I have started my internship before finishing my language classes (which being honest wasn’t a smart move but there was no other option due to time constraints). Important to note, that I did study Spanish before but my level was far from fluent.
I will break review in three parts so it is easier to follow.

Internship
Internship itself was amazing! Exactly what I wanted and what I expected: to be exposed to a private clinical setting, covering a range of problems starting from family crises finishing with schizophrenia. The doctor himself and his crew were very supportive and friendly, which I think is quite important especially for a new person which doesn’t really know Spanish. During the month, my comprehension skills rocketed up as well as reading ones, doctor would ask you to read A LOT ( a piece of advice for someone doing the same placement is to read beforehand his books, it will greatly assist during your internship and in general in your future career).
During the session with a patient, Doctor will explain his/hers diagnosis, share his opinion regarding the matter and would let to ask any question. Also you would have an opportunity to be present and sometimes even interview yourself various patients, complete there profile and participate in a psychotherapy. Sometimes when Doctor wasn’t available, someone from other doctors will invite to the differential diagnosis of his/hers patients.
From the negative side, I can highlight only the fact that most of the time instead of finishing at 3 or 4, I would finish at 7 or 8 which in my opinion is a bit too much for an unpaid internship. However, I have been interning only for a month so I decided to make the most of it but someone else who would want to do this internship for longer might want to consider to clarify this. At work no one seemed to be bothered with timing at all, I was told “leave whenever you feel tired”. But at the end it looks like such attitude is common among Spanish people, they are very chilled (at least the ones I have met).
Other aspect is language, I should have definitely taken classes before because talking to the patients was tough, my Spanish was very rusty.
Also you have to be prepared that sometimes patients would not want to talk in front of you therefore you would have to wait sometimes for a good 2-3hours.

Housing
I lived near Puerta del Sol with Adelante and Eureka (language school)students. The location is amazing, it is literally the central centre, all the touristic attractions, shops and nightlife are hand away from you. My apartment was very spacious with 5 more people living in, this might sound like quite a lot but in fact everyone seemed to co-exist very well. Throughout 2 months no one had any problem with anyone, a very peaceful atmosphere.
The massive downside was, as stated below, an air conditioner and unbearable heat during summer. It was so hot, even inferno would look like a ski resort. When I complained about it to the landlord, I was immediately given a fan, despite being very quick to react, I personally think that at such possibility of overheating air conditioners should be installed. Ironically there were air conditioner units but they didn’t work at any room.
Therefore a piece of advice, do internship when it is not too hot and if you choose to do it in a summer, consider looking for an apartment with an air conditioner.

Language School
I have been to two language schools before in Madrid and I think genuinely speaking that it is not the best one. The director (also a landloard) is very helpful and sorts out problems instantly but if judging school I would give it a solid C, at least for the time I have spent (2 weeks).
I completely agree with a review below that Eureka would work best for long-term students or complete beginners, it is not intense enough for short-term users.

Conclusion
Amazing Internship, good housing (even despite dysfunctional air conditioner), not bad language school. I think you do get value for money here.

My experience with Adelante was very mixed, with some positive notes and some negative notes.

I chose to live in the Adelante housing. The location was right next to Puerta del Sol, a great central location with lots of restaurants, shopping, and good transportation links nearby. However, as I was there during the summer, and this summer was particularly hot even by Madrid standard, living without air conditioning was extremely difficult. At one point, I came down with heat exhaustion just from laying on the couch, because the apartment was that hot. To make matters worse, there was an air conditioning unit, but it didn’t work. I asked about it, Eureka, the owner of the apartment about it, and there was no possibility of getting it fixed, so I was left to be taunted by a broken air conditioning, showing that it was possible to have air conditioning there, but yet there was no AC. In short, the Adelante housing is great, as long as you aren’t there during the summer.

The first two weeks were spent at the Eureka language school. I could tell that Eureka is a great school, and I appreciated the organized excursions during the first two weeks of my program. However, the structure of Eureka does not work for students who are there for only two weeks. It is designed for students to study there for months at a time. When I signed up for a program that included intensive language classes, I expected an intensive review of Spanish. Instead, I was placed into a class covering material I learned in high school, with people who were learning the material for the first time. So when I needed 15-20 minutes review per topic, I was instead forced to spend 4 days on it, and covered very little material in the time I was there. On a positive note, being just down the street from Eureka, who served as the landlord for the apartment, made it convenient when I had a problem, such as when the wifi stopped down and I needed them to fix it.

The internship was not what I was hoping for. I am interested in international relations, and was hoping for an internship that would allow me to explore career options related to international relations. I was placed at an NGO that related to my interest in international relations in name only. I worked in their marketing department, which had very little work for me to do, and I also find marketing to be extremely boring and not enriching enough for my interests. I spent many days just scrolling through news site or reading a book, feeling like I was just warming a desk. On the days that I did have something to do, it was merely translating documents to English or making Photoshop projects, bearing little resemblance to the internship that I had hoped for. I found myself in a marketing internship, which was not what I wanted, and I was extremely bored for 4 hours a day for 6 weeks.

This is what the positive element of Adelante comes in: their support. At one point, my frustration with my internship placement led me to email Adelante to ask for advice about how to handle it, and they immediately intervened in the situation. They asked Antonio, the intern advisor, to talk to my boss about it to save me from the awkwardness of talking to her about it myself. When he was unable to reach her via phone, he actually came into the office to talk to her. When she acknowledged that they didn’t have much for me to do, he arranged 2 interviews for me at other companies. Neither of the companies I interviewed with felt like a good match, so I decided to stick with my original company. Although not much ended up improving with internship placement, I really appreciated the support Adelante gave me, and it was nice to know that they tried.

It’s easy to dwell on the negative aspects of the program, but generally I had a very positive experience in Spain, but much of the positive experience took place outside of my class or my internship. It was what I made of it. I knew I wanted to be left with a positive impression of Spain, so I made sure to make it positive, by making friends and spending my time doing the things that interested me, whether that was going to see a movie in Spanish or traveling on the weekend. My Spanish improved exponentially during the two months that I was there. Even though my internship wasn’t perfect, being placed into an environment in which I was the only non-Spaniard improved my Spanish in a way that it could have never been improved from taking a Spanish class. I grew a lot from this experience, growth that I never would have experienced if I had stayed in the US for the summer.

My time in Madrid was wonderful, but what everybody needs to know and what I quickly learned is that your experience abroad depends almost entirely on what you make it. The first two weeks of classes went fine. I was placed in an intermediate class "because I had been taught Latin American Spanish and I could brush up on some basics," but I felt that I didn't learn all that much. The classes were geared towards the people that were there long term, since we spent the whole two weeks going over direct and indirect pronouns during the grammar section. I thought that we would be getting more of an intensive overview of Spanish grammar to remember the main points, but the conversation section was great to learn new vocabulary and get used to speaking Spanish again! After the two weeks of classes, I started out at one company that ended up being a horrible fit, but Adelante quickly helped me to find another placement at IFEMA (Feria de Madrid). It's a huge business, and it was an incredible experience to work at such a big company while still a student. I had a few projects to do, but I also had a lot of downtime where I browsed the internet to kill time. Some of this could probably be attributed to the slower summer season and my short time there, but if I were to re-do my summer I would probably choose something more hands on. I did a lot of Spanish writing, but I feel like I did not get to practice my spoken Spanish as much as I would have liked to. I traveled a little bit since I was on a tight budget, but I definitely want to come back to see more. Madrid is filled with endless shops, restaurants, bars, and clubs, and I tried my best to check out the most popular places and some of the more obscure ones as well.

The overall entire 2 months is Spain was an incredible personal experience for me, I went out and made new friends and was very independent. I could have come to Spain and done this without Adelante, however, I thought I needed to rely on an outside organization, but it turns out the 2 things they provided: housing and school, I could have got on my own without paying them to help me sign up for it all, however them being the "middle man" did help out a lot and reduce a lot of stress I would have had doing it myself. I was looking forward to the excursions through the school but was disappointed to find out three of them were canceled because not enough people signed up. The housing was very very nice, a huge plus and conveniently located, but the school was disappointing. In the 2 weeks I was there, I learned a couple key main lessons and then was off. For ex, we spent a week learning the difference between Por and Para. I wanted a more general review of Spanish to help me boost my speech when I am out alone conversationally. This is a much better school if you are planning on attending from the beginning to end level. When I came, after taking a test, I was put in the middle of a spanish class and their grammar lesson, and was there for 2 weeks while they were on the por/para and other smaller grammar lessons, and then I was out. Didn't learn much at all.

This was probably one of the best experiences of my life. The people at Eureka are amazingly kind and welcoming, and the people that you meet are all very interesting. Also, we all had one thing in common-we wanted to improve our Spanish! My practicas/practical was in a geriatric residence and I was able to interact with the patients there by helping them with their daily physical exercise routine, mental games, and mealtime. Although it was only 4 hours a day, I enjoyed being around the nurses and residents, using the Spanish that I was learning. Adelante does a good job of following up with you to make sure that you are okay, and the directors at Eureka really take care of you. The location of the apartments are also very convenient, and with all the friends that I made, it was easy to not be alone.

I participated in Adelante's Intern Abroad program in the Summer of 2014 and I had an amazing experience. The two week Spanish course was extremely helpful and it was really was a great refresher for remembering the Spanish I learned in school. My internship program was unique because I had the opportunity to work with the same company that I would be working for full time back in America. It was amazing to be able to have international experience working for a company before I even had the opportunity to begin full time. I met amazing people in the program and also in the city. I love that it is a very independent program and you have the ability to explore and travel as you please.

I am finishing my Bachelors in Nursing, with a Spanish minor, so I was looking for a unique internship in a hospital setting. I applied to Adelante with this in mind, and they found a great choice for me! I was placed in a hospital with an orthopedic surgeon. I assisted him in the operating room and in consultations before and after surgery. It was definitely hard to adjust to the language difference, especially since surgical and medical words are sometimes quite complex. However, the doctors were very patient and I quickly became comfortable working and speaking in tense situations in hospital. The surgical team of nurses and doctors took me under their wing and taught me so much. Each and every nurse and doctor I worked with was truly exceptional.

For people looking for an atypical, rewarding experience abroad, look no further than Adelante.

I feel like most people love their time abroad, but wish they had been able to do away with classes that really didn't contribute too much to their academic growth. With Adelante's internship placement, I had the wonderful chance to immerse yourself in the day-to-day of Madrid interning under a renowned psychiatrist as well as helping out with an LGBT/human rights organization. Both the these internships gave me real world experience in sectors that I am thinking about for post-grad, but, at the same time, forced my Spanish to improve immensely.

Then, while most people would be tied up with doing classwork, I had time to explore Madrid and other places as much as I wanted to. I ended up having time to read (which is never possible during semesters for me) and finished four books in Spanish, also contributing hugely to my learning. The school that Adelante bases out of in Madrid was also wonderful about having activities and always being welcoming when I stopped in to say hi and see what was going on.

One major disclaimer for this program: I've seen this posted before and I was told by the Adelante staff as well (they were very upfront about this), but I want to reiterate that, in order for this program to work for you, you need to be quite independent and ready to take initiative in your time abroad. Since there is no structured abroad group or program, you need to fill your own time. Now, this freedom can be absolutely fantastic. Case and point: I became friends with my co-workers and made life-long friends from Spain. However, none of that would have happened if I hadn't gone out of my comfort zone a lot (and I'm already a pretty outgoing guy) and motivated myself every day to take advantage of my time. So, if you pick this program (which you should), just remind yourself to give it all you've got and to not waste time being lazy or nervous about trying new things. No one will be nudging you along, so you need to take advantage of the many opportunities while abroad on your own terms.