I wanted to do one year of my studies abroad and it wasn't difficult for me to choose where (and I don't regret it). Luckily I had been in Spain (Málaga) on vacation before and had 3 years of Spanish in High School (whatever that's worth) so I wasn't too afraid of studying in the hot pot spanish capital.
I didn't take a lot of preparing and planning either, the paperwork was amazingly almost nothing and bringing money is better than bringing all your stuff when going for a year. Another thing was that I had Swedish friends who were going the same semester (although not to facultad de informatica) who had got themselves an apartment. I went about a month before the beginning of the semester to relax and check Madrid out before having to get serious.
I got in touch with Eva the Erasmus student coordinator who set me up with a proper apartment in the Aluche area which is where one will want to stay. The facultad is located outside town, in the desert southwest of it, and Aluche is the best compromise between living near school (good for school) and living near the centre (good for enjoyment) but you can't have both. Aluche is 15 minutes from either, most of my classmates lived in other parts and spent literally hours on metro and buses every day. A monthly B1 card on the metro for approximately 5000 ptas is what you'll need but hopefully people will explain all that stuff to you (like they did to me).
Madrid nightlife is your worst threat to academic achievements, other than that you should be ok. The Spanish school system is very heavy and bureaucratic yes, but foreign students are treated with a very understanding attitude by the school staff - take any classes, skip any classes, ask stupid questions. If you try being bothersome and irresponsible the vice Dean's secretary Petri will fix it and smile at you (saying it gives her good luck). As if that wasn't enough, you get food discounts 3 days a week and a computer room to share with the other exchange students.
At first I though I was being spoiled, Swedish students being comparatively very rich as it is, and denied the food discounts (I am vegan so I can't eat much of the Spanish cuisine let alone that of the Facultad de Informatica anyway) but then I realised I was saying no to free food and had my patatas fritas all year. Also the computer thing seemed a bit odd too because the regular Spanish students had almost no school-sanctioned computer access, and the little they had was of much lower standard than standards in Sweden (and they had to pay for it). So virtually all Spanish students had a computer of their own at home on which they did all the work and that was what was expected. Then only, it makes some sense to provide the foreigners with a computer room since they are not very many (say five each year) and couldn't drag with them their own computer.
The Spanish classmates are very open and friendly to foreign students. You'd better get started with the Spanish right away though otherwise you'll find yourself watching Spaniards babbling away at lightning speed (and smoking at the same time) once too many. English won't get you far outside class. There are loads of "Spanish for Foreigners" evening courses in Madrid, just check any magazine or irish pub - they'll have the ads. It's indeed a nice way to meet people and practice Spanish but you'll spend atleast 1000 pts an hour or so (well you can go around and get a free test class at each place :-)). It's best then to get an intercambio (that's what it's called), which is a person, preferrably your age, that you meet for coffee and talk Spanish to and in exchange half the time you teach them English (not a lot of people will be satisfied with Swedish). It's free and comes with an aquaintance, just check ads in the magazines (find them in any Irish pub) or at the University (find the English faculty) or put up an ad yourself.
The Madrid nightlife is absolutely amazing. There are pubs everywhere and it's very cheap. It's not cold outside, there are no entrance fees, no curfews (well just go to place which never closes, they abound), no long lines outside the bar (once inside you might not be able to move but then you're on the inside), people everywhere. I had a group of Swedish friends who had also discovered you can have lots of fun in Madrid of the 140 000 ptas a month CSN (which is more than a regular worker's monthly salary). There's no end to party-minded foreigners - there are very many from Northern Europe and you can hear american-accented Spanish all over (well it's more like American English with a Spanish touch - it's good fun imitating it). My favourite area to go out was around Malasaña, but that's just my opinion and I did not check all the places in Madrid.
The Spaniards are nice and everything but they live quite a different life. The average 4th-5th year Facultad de Informatica student works half-time, lives at home (on the other side of town), has a girlfriend/boyfriend since 5 years back and must study a lot so as to avoid paying to do the second exam. The exchange student's situation is usually quite the opposite. Try inviting some for dinner (football is always a good conversation topic, talk shit about Spain is a topic for late nights out with foreigners only) but they won't keep up the pace going to to six o'clock in the morning two or three times a week. I had a lot of drinking-mates but just a couple of real friends.
A lot of Spanish students felt they were treated badly by the school board and that teachers would generally not hear complaints or that a student dissatisfied with a course or exam or whatever had almost no power at all. It's certainly true that the system is more hiearchic in Spain, most teachers wear a suit to work, some have secretaries and offices the size of a football field. Still, I didn't experience any of that (but I didn't have the specific courses that people moaned about a lot) and a Swedish University I guess is granted more money to deal with. All (with no exceptions!) my teachers were knowledgeable and helpful, favourite courses were Teoría de la Computabilidad (Computability Theory - basically just recursion theory) and Teoría de Grafos (Graph Theory). I had expected to produce better results at school but as it turned out it was reasonable. In Madrid I coudln't understand zilch in the beginning, couldn't do the labs at night (it was closed) like I am used to, wouldn't just phone up any classmate obliging them to explain what was done in a class I had skipped that day etc. Also I had five much enjoyed and sunny one-week visits from friends from Sweden which put school down at priority zero.
Nevertheless I learned a lot about myself and as I wrote in the application, part of the goal was to learn Spanish, relax a Sunday in Retiro park, live abroad, watch football (once all five TV-channels had football on at the same time) and just have fun - which I did!
Harald Hammarstrom
haha2581@student.uu.se
018-130205
070-7184339