| |||
|
| |||
|
|
|
contact us | sitemap |
|
|
|||
 |
 | UNSW > CVEN HOME > Current Students > Exchange Students > Tega Brain | |
|  Exchange Students Tega Brain Josh MilstonJosh Tang | |
Tega BrainPolytechnic University, Valencia, SpainBachelor of Arts and Environmental Engineering Polytechnic University, Valencia, Spain, exchange from Sept 2004 – Feb 2005. Subjects studied:
The most difficult thing in organising this exchange was finding appropriate subjects to study that the UNSW faculties would approve for accreditation for my degree. If I hadn’t had the arts component of my degree I don’t think there would have been enough subjects that the Engineering faculty would approve. At the time of this exchange, the Spanish dept in the Arts faculty had a policy of approving any subjects that were taught in Spanish for credit towards a Spanish major. For this reason, I could study the Painting subject in the fine arts faculty, since it was taught in Spanish. The language of instruction of all my engineering subjects was also Spanish and this made them very challenging. However, I maintained a good relationship with my lecturers who were very accommodating and helped out wherever they could in regards to making the language barrier less difficult. I would recommend looking at all the subjects that the University offers, not just in the Engineering faculty because it is a lot easier to match up science subjects like ecology and biology than some of the more specific Engineering courses. It is also worth noting that a lot of the textbooks for science subjects could be found in the library in English and this was particularly useful. The university does offer some subjects in English however, when I was there, none of them were appropriate for approval here. The Polytechnic University is structured so that each faculty was almost as if it was a separate university. They don’t really have double degrees like they do here and this made timetabling and enrolling very difficult especially since almost nobody speaks English. It took me about 6 weeks before I’d sorted my enrolment in everything. However, this said, the university is a lot more relaxed than here and apart from the language difficulties, the amount of course content was roughly equivalent to that of UNSW but there were less assessments than you would have here. Also, due to the large amount of Erasmus exchange students who go there to study, the academics and university staff are very accustomed to dealing with exchange students and were understanding. The engineering faculty also had an exam policy where if you fail an exam, you have the opportunity to resit it several more times before you would fail the course. This was very comforting. I think it is also worth saying that you have to be on top of organising subjects/enrolments/course approvals etc. yourself, because the Exchange dept from USNW basically don’t get involved and were not helpful. In terms of the cultural and social experience of the exchange. I chose to organise my own accommodation and moved into an apartment that I shared with 6 others. Needless to say it was pretty crazy especially when they don’t speak a word of English and your Spanish is really bad. But, I deliberately chose to live in a place with non-English speakers and I think it really paid off because by the end of my 9 month stay we were all very close friends and my Spanish was very functional (and I am by no means a good language student). Valencia is a big destination for the European Erasmus crowd, so it is really easy to make friends with English speakers from Germany etc. and although this too is wonderful for cultural exchange and sharing the exchange experience, it can limit your opportunities to speak Spanish. Spain is a really wonderful to live and a place like Valencia is almost like a big town. Everyone goes out to the plazas and the main street every weekend to drink and party and so the streets are packed with people every weekend and I found that there was a really nice sense of community. It’s very different to Australia where ‘going out’ means you go to a pub or a bar. Of course the hours are different also and a lot of clubs don’t actually open til 3am/4am and you wouldn’t think of actually leaving the house til after 11pm. I also found the people to be wonderful, warm, friendly and insane. They were all very interested in other cultures especially when you come from as far away as Australia. I would recommend doing the exchange in the Spring/Summer there because this is when most of the festivals and cultural events happen around the country. The various festivals such as Las Falles, La Tomatina etc are an absolute must see and it was awesome to be living there at the time and not to be there just as a tourist. I would say to anyone considering going on exchange, definitely do it. Studying overseas is an invaluable way to integrate fairly easily into a foreign culture and you are immediately part of the university community and the exchange student community. Spain in particular, is a wonderful place to live due the laid back Mediterranean culture and the people who are headstrong, lively and crazy. I had the time of my life there, met some amazing people and managed to get through university without too many hiccups. | | | |
|  | |||||
|
| |||
