AIFS Abroad: Study in Austria

Studying abroad in Salzburg, Austria was by far the best experience of my college career. I met life long friends whom I would not otherwise have met. These friends and I were able to travel all over Europe experiencing everything it had to offer. Salzburg was a perfect place to study because of its central location and its perfectly preserved Alt Stadt. Salzburg is safe and there is something for everyone. I cannot speak enough about the program and the friends I have met. I recommend this to everyone I meet.

I would not trade this experience for anything in the world.

Austria is not usually the first country in Europe you think you want to study abroad in, but the Salzburg program is one of the best experiences for the money. The city itself, while small, is enchanting and full of pubs, cultural experiences, and natural wonder. I enjoyed the historic iron signs on every corner, learning how the city coped during the fascist regime, and hiking/biking/skiiing in the alps.
The size of the program is comfortable, at 40 you can find people with similiar interests and get to know them while still having alone time if you wish. The courses are fantastic. Two of my favorite Professors of my entire undergrad experience were from the AIFS program. Some chose to take it easy and did not try very hard and still passed, but if you take the time to ask questions you can learn so much. (My focus was the International Relations path). Taking the Austrian culture course was a highlight, both because of the professor and because of how it enhanced my experience. I knew only a little German and felt comfortable in the city. The German booster course helped a lot when we first arrived even though I was not excited about it initially.
Make sure you make the most of the travel excursions. I LOVED the places we went and was glad for some direction, but enough free time to see what I was interested in.

I had a great time studying abroad with AIFS. The first few days of our program, they took us around the city to help us get aquainted with our surroundings. Salzburg is a gorgeous city, and I hope to go back and visit someday. The program was really helpful - setting up housing for us, giving us a meal stipend each month, and even taking us on a couple weekend trips. I made a lot of friends while on the program, even though I didn't know anyone when I started. The program also gave us great tips on where to shop and how to get around. You should definitely check it out!

Studying abroad in Salzburg, Austria with AIFS was the best decision I made during my college career. Once I was accepted into the program, any questions I had were answered quickly and thoroughly by the AIFS staff both in Stamford CT and Ingrid, Suzanna and Andreas in Salzburg. My biggest worry was the travel to London and Salzburg but the staff made it so easy to find them and truly put me at ease once I arrived. Throughout my 4 months in Salzburg, I knew the office door was always open to any questions or concerns I had, or even just to chat and have some cookies! Salzburg is such a unique and beautiful city and you can tell that the people who live and work there truly love it and take pride in their home atop the Austrian Alps. My professors at the University were very helpful and understanding of our different academic backgrounds. It was extremely interesting to hear about topics such as the Holocaust and Fascism from an Austrian perspective and we even got to visit a concentration camp which was both horrifying and educational. While I had class four days a week, I still was left with plenty of time to explore Salzburg and all it has to offer and to travel on the weekends. The opportunity to study abroad and truly immerse yourself into a culture is truly once in a lifetime and choosing to have this experience through AIFS gave me the support and guidance I needed to succeed without being overbearing or too protective. I will forever remember the places I visited in Austria and the surrounding countries and I will never again make a group of friends with such a close bond as my friends from Salzburg.

This was one of the most amazing experiences of my life! I studied abroad my junior year and met so many amazing people in my program from all over the US. I didn't take any German before going, but took German as one of my classes when I was there - it was very helpful. The other classes were fairly easy and I only had class from M-Th so it was nice for traveling on the weekends. (You also have to think about your main goals in studying abroad, because I was more interested in the experience/traveling rather than classes).

Austria is also centrally located so it made traveling easy to so many countries - I visited 10 the whole semester. The included trips were great and so much fun! I also loved that there was a 2 week spring break.

The housing was also perfect. I stayed at St Sebastian and it was close to everything - and walking here is not a problem at all because of the great weather and beauty of Salzburg!

The only negative I can really think of is how they did the meal allowances compared to other programs. Maybe they have changed this? I basically cooked all my meals just due to the cost of food/eating out. I could go on and on on how wonderful of an experience studying abroad is - Salzburg was amazing!

Salzburg was the perfect place to study abroad because it is so cental answer I also liked that it was "off the beaten path". Also the cost of living was much better than in big cities such as vienna or london. The aifs program was great; I thought one of the best parts was that the group size was 36, which is big enough that you're bounid to find people that you really get along with, but small enough that you r eady get to know everybody without feeling forced to spend too much time with them.i would definitely recom
mend this program.