IES Abroad Madrid Language and Area Studies

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience. IES center staff were helpful and easily accessible, and the center was close to both my homestay, downtown, and the Universidad Complutense. The city has great public transportation, and is also easily walkable. The IES center facilitated great outside activities with Spanish students as well as several field trips included in the program cost with other IES students. I visited Bilbao, San Sebastian, Segovia, and Toledo with the IES program. For students hoping to take a class at the Complutense I would recommend that they begin searching before the semester begins and that they maintain close contact with the academic staff at IES as it's sometimes tricky to facilitate. I had an internship with a Spanish nonprofit that IES helped facilitate--it turned out great! I worked as a translator between Spanish and English. Madrid has a bunch of daytime cultural attractions (art museums, historical sites etc) as well as a really vibrant nightlife, though beware, the metro closes at 1:30 AM. I quite enjoyed my IES classes, even though they were less rigorous than what I was used to at my home school--my grammar class was especially good for teaching me "native-like" grammar and expressions. The classes, since the workload was less than I was used to, also allowed me to travel on several weekends, which was an added bonus.