Internships in Barcelona - Adelante Abroad

An amazing social experience over anything! Every connection I made was a branch to new things to do in the city ! I’ve made amazing friends from all over the world, not just my country of stay, and it has given me new insights on culture, life, and so many other aspects! The activities provided by the program’s connections were also insanely fun! The program also taught me so much about my own self-sufficiency, and how truly competent I am. I now know that if I am able to survive and fend for myself in a foreign environment, I definitely can do it back in my own home country and city. I’ve frequently described this experience and one of if not the best experience of my life so far, and it definitely has molded me into a new, better, more responsible and ambitious person.

The early processes of applying for this program were very clear and straightforward. Adelante did an excellent job communicating what was needed from me along with all the important details and deadlines leading up to my trip.
Upon arrival, everything was as described. I had a ride from the airport to my apartment, was greeted by my landlord who walked me through everything, and started language courses at Kingsbrook the following Monday.
Kingsbrook was probably my favorite part of the whole program. All of the workers were extremely friendly and helpful, and it was an easy way to meet people who were also traveling and make friends right away.
After the two weeks at Kingsbrook began my internship. Though not necessarily Adelante's fault, maybe more so the company I worked for, but I was extremely, extremely....... extremely bored. Every day that I was there. I sat at a computer and did data entry, sometimes printed and filed important documents, but that was about it. I was okay with this at the beginning of course, but I thought eventually I'd get to at least participate in some of the event coordination that the company does (this was a group travel agency who planned museum tours, amusement park entry, sporting events, etc. for large groups of students). Though everyone was very kind and I liked the atmosphere of where I worked, I was quite disappointed with the way the internship played out.
My apartment was clean and very modern, however pretty far from the city (~25 min metro ride) which made it a bit of a hassle when wanting to go explore. My apartment did not come with a washing machine but instead my landlord would come and take the laundry once a week and bring it back several days later. Not a huge deal but this was sometimes problematic when I was traveling to other cities over the weekend and some weeks she would take way too long to return the clothes. I learned later it was much easier to just hand wash them myself. Something to note as this was not explained to me beforehand.

As a whole I enjoyed my time in Barcelona and very happy to have chosen this city to live in! I was lucky enough to be here for some of the city's biggest holidays and could not have enjoyed my time more.

This program has so much to offer - I had such a great experience over in Barcelona! I was there for 2 months and did not want to leave. Barcelona was fun, young, and lively. Everyone I met there was very nice. Not once did I feel in danger - it was a safe and clean city.

My marketing internship was done at the language school you attend the first two weeks of the program. I could not have asked for a better internship. I made so many new friends and loved the place.

This was the first time I had ever lived on my own - let alone in a foreign country. I could tell how much more mature I felt leaving as to when I first arrived. It is a great experience to have, and luckily this program helps you along the way.

Adelante is a great program for those interested in improving their Spanish language skills as well as achieving personal and professional growth. Kingsbrook Language School in Barcelona is an excellent institution that provides students with a good learning environment as well as the opportunity to meet other people at varying levels of language acquisition. Adelante supports their interns while also giving them the independence to make the most of their experience abroad. Great communication and support both at home during the application process and while abroad!

I decided to join Adelante's program back in March of 2017 for an internship starting in June of 2017. It was a little last minute, but Adelante worked with me to get everything I needed done in time! I stayed in Barcelona for 2 months (June to July) and had an amazing time! My favorite part of the summer were the 2 weeks of Spanish classes that you take in the beginning (my focus this summer was improving my Spanish and these classes are what helped me the most). My internship was actually at the language school that I took classes at. I'm a psychology major interested in human resources so I worked with the coordinators on conducting feedback from their English Professors. My internship could have been better in terms of having more work to do during the week, but I loved the staff and enjoyed the experience. Finally, as a city, you can't beat Barcelona! It has everything to offer, but the beach is the #1 perk. If you're debating between Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona, just choose Barcelona. You won't regret it.

I was with Adelante for their two-month program in Barcelona under Business Marketing. I would say I had a really fun overall experience. I met so many people all over. Most of them are from the U.S. I'm from California and everyone else was from the east coast. Those friends that I've met were my family in Barcelona for all two-months I was here. We all went out together and traveled together.

The two-week language school, Kingsbrook, is intense, but I learned a great deal and I had to start my internship right when I got to Barcelona so my schedule was jammed pack. It was my decision, not Adelante. However, I don't know the difference between Adelante program and Kingsbrook. I had more connections through Kingsbrook than I did with Adelante. I'm not quite sure. Overall, I'm thankful for the program that took the effort to find my internship. Furthermore, I had an amazing time!

During my internship in Barcelona I had a fantastic experience. The city is amazing with a lot of fun and things to do. You cannot like it in here. Housing was quite good although it was far away from my internship company.The work experience in my internship was really useful. I got a lot of contacts that will help me in my future career. I met a lot of important and interesting people. I learnt a new language and culture thanks to visiting a lot of cultural events. I spent 4 months in Barcelona. I suggest new students to do their internship for the longest time possible. You will not be disappointed . Adelante stuff was helpful, I did not have any problem and if so they resolved all of them. Also the Spanish course at the begging of the internship is interesting and useful. It helps you to get used to Spanish.

It surprises me how this program continues to receive largely very positive reviews. Certainly, if everything had gone according to plan with my program experience, I might feel more magnanimous towards Adelante– despite the program’s thorough mediocrity in any case, really. In the end, my three months in Barcelona were just decent enough. The “Miami of the Mediterranean” is a hard place to get bored with, but well before I had even arrived in Spain, Adelante dropped the ball. Adelante Abroad bills itself as “a very strong, successful program right now,” but for me, it was actually more like a recklessly inattentive internship mill, hiding behind a fairly deceptive website. My main mistake was initially applying for a six-month program in Barcelona. It turns out that applying for an Adelante program longer than the 90-day Schengen Area allowance, which usually requires a visa, can send you on an exhausting and expensive journey into some shady bureaucratic territory. And Adelante is definitely not going to be there to guide you through it, whatever they may claim to the contrary.

Schengen Area countries require Americans to obtain a longer-term visa for stays of more than ninety days. Adelante was woefully irresponsible in how it prepared me to apply for a visa. It is true that for a variety of reasons, Adelante must ultimately leave the visa responsibility to the applicant, but this does not excuse Adelante from the gross negligence they displayed in failing to guide me, a paying client, through the process. Everything was going well until Adelante got back to me with my program dates; I was to spend 189 days in Spain. This proposed length of time was obviously inconvenient, as visas for longer than 180 days require a more comprehensive background check, including a medical analysis and an FBI criminal history report. Of course, I had to research this on my own; Adelante seemed clueless and unaware that the inclusion of just nine extra days would require significantly more effort and money on my part. And though I had applied well ahead of Adelante’s deadline, I found myself having to scramble to acquire all the necessary documents in time for my last-minute appointment at the Spanish Consulate in San Francisco. In total, I spent slightly over $1,000 in costs related to my visa application; much of this went to fees associated with obtaining FBI clearance.

I drove hundreds of miles to San Francisco and walked into the Consulate of Spain on the day of my appointment. I was met with an ice-cold reception. My visa officer spoke in a haughty tone, and requested additional documentation above and beyond what I was led to believe was necessary (this documentation was not listed as necessary anywhere on the consulate’s website). Apparently in the eyes of Spain, I was some hardcore criminal intent on causing trouble in Barcelona until I proved myself otherwise, despite my perfectly clean FBI record. I never figured out why they did not like me; maybe they simply did not like the way I looked. A chat with the visa officer’s supervisor yielded the same aggressive suspiciousness (he was friendly at first, but after going downstairs to pick up my application file and speak with the visa officer, he came back with a real doozy of an attitude). There was little I could do to change this; as representatives of a foreign government, visa officers are pretty much free to exercise whatever discretion they want when it comes to issuing visas. And while this situation was obviously bad, Adelante’s response was equally disappointing. Yes, maybe the consulate was determined to keep me out of Spain for more than three months, but Adelante did not even lift a finger to assist me, their client. It did not help that Adelante messed up my introduction letter to the consulate; they carelessly mislabeled me as an “architecture” student. The visa officer told me that they would process my application once I had submitted my “Convenio.” I was somewhat familiar with this term; in the course of my visa research, I had learned to equate “Convenio” with Adelante’s “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU), a contract between the intern and the company. The consulate wanted this document as extra proof that I would actually be an intern (and not a criminal) in Spain. On the phone, Adelante feigned ignorance. They claimed that the MOU was merely an “internal document,” and that mine was not ready, as they had not even set me up with an employer yet. Later in Spain, when I actually received my MOU, it was also labeled “Convenio,” and had all the appearances of being a real legal document. So much for the Adelante Director’s unconvincing defense over the phone: “‘Convenio?’ What does that even mean? I’m so sorry, Jarrett. You’ll just have go to Spain without a visa!”

Faced with arrogant obstruction from the consulate, lazy incompetence from Adelante, and with just weeks to go before my flight to Europe, I made the difficult decision to abort my visa application and shorten my program to less than ninety days. Once again, I had lost $1,000 in failed pursuit of this visa, and I had moved to a shorter-term Adelante program, which is charged at a much higher monthly rate. I did not think I was paying several thousand dollars for Adelante to basically say: “Okay man, let us know when you get the visa. Good luck! You’ll need it! LOL.” Adelante’s emphasis on the “independent traveler” is a subtle way of shirking responsibility when things go wrong. It became clear to me why sleeker internship companies do not even usually offer programs for more than three months– it is simply irresponsible to send unprepared applicants blindly into the bureaucratic hell that can be the visa application process. And after going through this disaster, my shortened internship experience did little to relieve my disappointment with Adelante. As other reviewers have noted, the actual internships that Adelante arranges can be unsatisfying at times. Adelante sent me links to the websites of glamorous hotels, and told me that I would go through a rigorous training process at one of them. In reality, I spent a lot of my days just cleaning rooms and waking people up at a simple hostel. I met another Adelante intern in Barcelona who actually called it “false advertising.” As for lodging, I was placed in an old apartment with no air conditioning and dysfunctional Wi-Fi. It was definitely not a truly horrible situation, but it certainly did little to change my impression of Adelante as a fairly lackluster internship company. My contact at Adelante did reliably check in with me over email, but these short and generic messages seemed like a cheap way of creating the illusion of real customer service.

I suppose you get what you pay for. My Spanish skills did improve, and I did gain work experience. Considering Adelante’s affordable, bargain basement prices, I might have been basically satisfied with my barebones internship and lodging experience in Barcelona, were it not for the fact that Adelante’s clumsiness regarding bureaucratic realities cost me a great deal of extra time and money. And although I cannot forgive the Spanish Consulate for its bizarre and inexplicable suspicion of me, I was absolutely unimpressed with Adelante’s weak and evasive response to that challenge. So, I must place equal blame for this episode with the consulate, and with Adelante for failing to look after me as a client. Probably the best aspect of the program was the vibrant city of Barcelona itself, but obviously Adelante is not the only internship company that can take you there. Going forward, I would strongly caution American applicants against opting for a longer-term Adelante program, as these may require a visa, and Adelante may just abandon you, should trouble arise in your visa application process. Shorter programs, however, do not have the same low per-month rate that attracted me to Adelante over its competitors in the first place. To improve its service, Adelante needs to put more effort into assisting its clients through the visa application process, and to be more prepared when its clients encounter a hostile bureaucracy. Adelante should also warn prospective clients about the unpredictable risks, costs, and significant efforts involved in the visa application process.