Madrid

I love Madrid. Honestly, before the program I didn´t expect much from it. I knew that Spain is a Latin country as I am (I'm Brazilian), and that I could possibly find some affinities with this place because of that, but I had no clue of what it would be. Fortunately, it turned out to be an awesome place with very nice and friendly people. I really enjoyed.

In Madrid you can find whatever you want. There are many cultural activities available such as museums, historical areas and nice architecture from different periods. The city is very livable, people are always on the streets and bars are always full at evenings, making a walk around the city a very pleasant experience. Madrid also has an amazing nightlife, one of the best in the world I would say. A club gets crowded only after 2 am, and, is common, at weekends, to get home after 7 am.

WHERE TO LIVE

In my opinion, when finding a place Madrid, the most important thing is location. If you like to go out and socialize during the night, get a place from which you can walk (max 30 min walk) from Sol station located in the city center. Metro is not available from 2 am to 6 am. Because of that, if you live far away, you have to wait (which is not so hard in Madrid), catch a taxi, or wait for a night-bus in the winter. For this reason, I would say that Moncloa, Quevedo, Canal, San Bernardo are a good areas. The name of the area usually is the name of the metro station nearby. Those areas are not so far away from Sol and you can easily go to uni. This is what I remember, there are other areas that fulfill these criteria as well, look for it:

• Walking distance from Sol
• Reach the university without changing metro-lines

ANOTHER IMPORTANT THING is that, in order to reach the university, you can also use the station Nuevos Ministerios besides Gregorio Marañon. Take this into consideration when looking for a place.

The best places in Aluni are taken early, months before the beginning of the classes. For this reason, If you decide for this solution, I advise you to be quick. In my case, we could get the email from the people selected for IMIM and ask who was interested in sharing an apartment. I lived with Greg (USA / South Africa) and Hung (Vietnam), both from IMIM and we had a very good time together.

My apartment was near Franco Rodriguez station, northeast from the city center (Sol station). It was really good to be only 5 stations from the university, without changing lines. It normally took 25 minutes from home to the university, also counting a little walk to get in and off stations. But, it was hard to go back from Sol (nightlife area) before 6 am.

The apartment was very good, new appliances, and Aluni gave all the support we required. Along the semester we had to change the heater, the blinds in my bedroom, fix a microwave and a leaking flush in the bathroom. Aluni and the owner of the apartment took care of everything and were very helpful.

OTHER ADVICES

If you can, do your best to learn Spanish. Begin now! You will see that many people don’t speak English and it will make it a lot easier to get to know local people and make local friends. Later on, this is an important skill for finding an internship in Spain if you wish.

If you like nightclubs I recommend Joy (Thursdays), Pachá (Fridays) and Kapital (Fridays). Those are more touristic places, nice to go in the beginning, then, you will find places you like most. Find the profile or group in Facebook of “Erasmus Madrid”, there are always good deals for getting in the clubs.

Madrid is awesome! Enjoy it!

Pedro, IMIM 2009/2011

What after?

Hi all,

I guess most of the new applicants would be worried with this question the most, so now that we are finishing the 5th edition I thought I could share some of our experiences with you on what after the program. First of all the school all the three universities will help you a lot in finding the internships with their regulations in place off course. It has some rules to be followed if you are taking the internship/thesis with a company. After that its up to you to impress the company that you are suitable candidate for them. There is a common misconception that EU citizens would get the internships very easily compared to Non EU. But it all boils down to your skill set, experience and language ability. The language skills are very important if you wish to be employed in Europe. So please focus on your language skills dont neglect them. All most all the European firms requires either local language skills or proficiency in other European language. Some of our seniors got the jobs with the firms they did the internship, some of them went for Phd programs and some of them wanted to be entrepreneurs, from our batch we should wait and see what happens. But as mentioned everything comes down to you, you would be given a chance and its up to you to make use of it. Wish you all the best for the new applicants.. have fun... its an amazing experience....

Finally finished with three semesters

Its amazing to see time running away. One and half year ago we were just a bunch of people from all around the world without having a clue of each other, just staring at one another, and thinking where the hell is this guy/gal from and for Gods sake what is he speaking I don't understand a word, how come i bear with him all through the course, these were initial inhibitions that everyone of us had. Turn the wheel to the present the same set of people now know each other inside out and friends forever, who helped each other, who fought each other, who competed with each other right from choosing to a bar to getting an 'A'. There was never even a thought of separation thinking that this is eternal but bliss of all the good things has to come to an end. Though this is not the end this is the beginning of the dreadful event which we all did not want to think about separating and every one going on their way which should essentially happen at some time.

The last examination is always the though one not because of the subject but because of the events that follow it...yeahhh parties and stuff. Specially if the exam you are taking is the last one for a coming very long time its even hard. This was the situation of most of us in the class. Finally we finished all the three semesters lots of fun, lots of learning, when you look back Madrid would always be special as thats where it all began. We had a gathering after the exam as people were moving to different parts of Europe later and we would all see each other again mostly in Como during our thesis presentations. The good thing is there are batches so that people arent left alone. People are doing their thesis at Madrid, como, Paris, Bologna, cologne,Stockholm with various companies whirlpool,Lamborghini, Renault,Accenture and some other Nordic firms. It was tough time to find the thesis but both schools and individuals efforts some how worked and most of us could find the thesis from the company, some of us even rejected offers to pursue own interests. Every batch that comes in experiences this feeling its always hard to leave but its for everyones good...... :-)

hi

I hope it would also be a fun hearing you. We are cool. It is fun to be a member of IMIM-2009.

 

Atakilti (Ater)

Back in Stockholm..

We just finished our vacation and finally most of us are here in Stockholm. The classes have already started. Stockholm looks really good on the first glimpse. Almost all of us got the accommodation. Majority of us are staying in Bromma the university dormitory but some of them were also staying in other dormitories here.

Here are some of pictures from KTH-Stockholm. The classes are already on a full flow. It really kind of strange to see how different each of the universities we have visited are, different teaching methods, different grading scales really amazing experience. The reception for us here at Stockholm was really good. We are mostly having classes with several other batches so at times we find more than 100 students in a class. We met the consortium members yesterday for the final briefings for our master thesis.  Well things are in smooth flow after the vacation and its kind of nice when we met each other after long time.

Wish you all the best for this years batch who I think are coming two weeks from now. Be in touch with us if you have any questions or doubts we can share our experiences with you.  Madrid is going to be a wonderful starting semester. We will also post some of our best practices which we have done which might help you. For now bye from all IMIM 5th edition from Stockholm.