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.

Recent News

Hi every one. I hope now that all of you have received your admission letters and other stuff you guys are busy with your documentation. A  lot has been going on here too. Let me update you with the events out here. First of all we have come to the end of our semester at Como an amazing place. We will post some of our best memories of Como.

We had amazing industrial visits to companies like Whirlpool, B&B etc. And tomorrow we the 4th edition are defending their thesis, and we are having an Alumni gathering over here. We are also working on the new website which we will launch once we finished all the testing. We expect you to give some comments and feedback on the current website so as to include all the required details.

Please fill the following Feedback Form to help us provide you with more useful information.

Some pictures of our apartment

Here are some of the photos I took from our apartment back in Madrid. Three of us were living here (Three bedrooms and one bathroom) and as Titinart said it was far from the university but with an access to Cercanias, it became easier. Just be careful of your extra utility expenses, keep track of your bills coz' you don't want your deposit to be deducted at the end.

Warin

1. Bedroom

2. Kitchen

3. Common area

accommodation in Madrid

Hello everyone

About our living experience in Madrid, we got the apartment through Aluni like most of people. Our address was calle Avenida Albufera 279 Madrid. It's in the southern part of Madrid, quite close to Miguel Hernandez metro station on line 1 (just 5 mins walk). The rent was not high, 363 Euros included internet and other utilities, but it's so far from school. In the first two months, we traveled to school by metro and it took us around 1 hour because we needed to change the train at Tribunal station to line 10 to reach school at Gregorio Maranon station. As you can see from metro map, there're more than 10 stops before arriving school. It's quite tiring and time consuming.

But then we discovered the better way to travel to school. It's another kind of train called "Cercanias". Cercanias has different route from metro. If you notice in metro map, you'll see the little red circle sign indicating which station has Cercanias train. This train is faster and cleaner. Moreover, you can travel with your Abono monthly pass. So, to travel to school by cercanias I took metro 1 stop to Sierra de Guadalupe and changed to Cercanias then just 6 stops to arrive at Nuevos Ministerios station. The travel time was reduced to 30 mins.

So, if you want to find accommodation with cheap rent, you have to live quite far from school and city center. We would suggest you to at least live within zone A and close to metro station that has Cercanias so you won't be so tired travelling to school. Another important thing is to have supermarket near to your place because you will need to buy your food and supplies at least every week. In my area, we couldn't find any supermarket around Miguel Hernandez station so we had to take metro or bus to nearby supermarket. There're big supermarkets at Buenos Aires station and Sierra de Guadalupe and one small supermarket at Alto del Arenal.

Good luck with your search ^_^

Titinart and Warin

 

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my accommodation was quite different

 

Unlike most people in our class, I didn't find my accommodation through aluni, and I found it on the website of segundomano, which means second hand. I shared with 3 other girls, there were a few problems but it was an interesting experience, I lived between metro Estrecho in a blue line which directly goes to Sol, and Francos Rodriguea-line 7- which goes to school. So the location was really good and the price was good too. But we didn't have a contract, so it was a little risky, since they might not give your deposit money back, or you can't be sure about what they are going to provide you in the house.

 

Aluni is a safe option, if you're not that much flexible yet- you should be come one, if you want to survive this master!- and alittle afraid of leaving your country, go with aluni options. But if you have a little sense of adventure and knows a little spanish, you can definetly find great apartments in good locations with a really good price.

 

Remember that Madrid is a big city, and every year lots of students came there to study, not only the European erasmus students, but even from inside Spain. If you want to catch the good oppurtunities in accommodation, you should hurry, since because as you know or would know, the higher the demand, the higher the price. If you have someone there, ask them to go and check the houses for you since this is the best way of renting an apartment.

 

Ofcourse it is really good to have your place near school, but remember that public transportation in madrid, especially metro is realy good and you don't have to worry that much, to pass each station by metro usually takes 2-3 minutes, so if you're 10 stations away, you are 20-30 minutes away from the school. so being close to metro is almost as important to being close to the supermarket!

 

 

my accomodation in madrid!

Calle de los Pinillas 8, or The Italian Girls Apartment.
 
As far as I experienced, living in Madrid can mean 2 things. Either you find a place shared with 8-10 people in an extremely central area like Lavapies or Sol, or you go, price being more or less the same, for a wider room, in a 3-4 people flat in a less central area.
It's a matter of trade off, as you soon will learn in IMIM :-) :living in a 24/7 party atmosphere or having a bit of space and quiet more spending some time on the metro to reach the city center?
Considering this, the Italian Girls Apartment (me and Chiara) was the perfect option II: wide, tidy, calm...and about half an hr metro away form the center, in the nice quarter of Valdebernardo. Never regretted the choice actually! (we shared the flat with two other amazing girls, and by the way the metro system in Madrid is really impeachable)
The channel we used to find this accomodation was Aluni, the agency conventioned with UPM, whose offer is generally made by average price (350-400 eu/month)-calm-a bit far from the city center accomodations. If you're looking for other kind of solutions, sites as Loquo or Easypiso can be more helpful!
In bocca al lupo!
 
Elena and Chiara

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Accomodation in Madrid

Hi,

As for my accomodation, I stayed at Calle Francisco Navacerrada 39, very close to the metro stations "Manuel Becerra" (Metro lines 2 and 6) and "Las Ventas" (Metro lines 2 and 5). There were a lot of advantages to living at this place, because it was very well conected to the city center (Within 20 minutes I was able to go to "Sol", the exact city center) and still it was very close to school. In fact, bus number 12 passed just about 200 meters away from my place and stopped right in front of the University.

Regarding the location of the flat, I can tell you it was in a residential area near park "Eva Perón" where it was possible to find three supermarkets, lots of pharmacies, two hospitals, at least three chinese stores (Where you can find whatever you need), and many more useful places. Therefore, I strongly recommend you this area, as it is one of the most convenient in terms of location.

How I got to know about the flat? As some of my friends who have already shared their experiences, I did it through ALUNI. The prices in this area ranged from about 370,00 € + utilities (Usually 30,00 €) up to 420,00 € + utilities.

Good luck with your search!

My accommodation in Madrid

I found my apartment from aluni. The apartment is in Calle del General Cabrera, quite close to Bernabeu stadium. 5 mins away from metro station Santiago Bernabeu. About half an hour away from UPM by walking. The room is big and well furnished. The enviournment is quite and beautiful. There is even a maid who will help you do the cleaning and washing.
The drawback is the high price. 430 euros for everything. And also you need to live with the landlord and her son. They are nice persons, but the landlady doesn't like Asian food, so if you cook some spicy food or something with strong smell, there might be some problems.

Feng

accomodation in Madrid

Hi,

I will tell you a few words about my experience from Madrid.
Firstly, Madrid is great city. I never had better parties, first metro at 6 in the morning was very important and our official trasnportation :) Therefore I suggest you to be close to metro stations when choosing the accommodation. Faculty is close to Gregor Maranon and Nuevos Ministerios stations as you probably know. So, it is not easy to be very close to the University, but being close to some of the metro stations is possible to find and one of have to things.
I took the option to book flat through Aluni agency. My overall experience is quite good. You have to keep in mind that you are not the only customer for them and that a lot of people are serching for the flat so from time to time they are a bit slow to respond but most important thing is that everything that was in the contract they fulfiled. I was located very close to the faculty, near the station Cuatro Caminos which is very good solution because it is not so far from the center and it has 3 metro lines which is perfect. From the faculty it was 15 minutes walking distance, when you are late on exam or something it was 10 minutes downhill running :) All in all, i did not buy Abono transportes (monthly ticket) which is about 50e and I spent around 20e monthly so let's say I saved 30e per month because of location. My room was 458e a month (included expences and internet) so full price, which would be a higher price for Aluni acoomodation. I would say that prices are going around 400e up and down but now i think you know it better than me. The street name was calle de Maudes, you can check it on the map.
Maybe the worst thing was that I had 5 more flat mates. In the end we became good friends and it is good to practice language because people were mostly talking spanish but also there were some bad sides like kitchen. You can judge alone what you need, I mainly tried to tell you my view about location.
Fianlly, if you can be close to Cuatro Caminos station, having in mind University and the centre I would warmly recomend it...

Milos

Finally in Como….. Thanks to the Italians

The good news to all of us is that we have arrived here at Como. Most of them are settled. We will try to put out all our experiences  in the blog to help you guys who are coming next and we hope that you continue this ..

The one thing which I want to tell you guys is that many of you might have applied for multiple programs and must be waiting for results now. In any case if you are  admitted and not interested in IMIM or any other program please mail back to the committee so as to give chance to other people in the waiting list. Don't hang on two boats please :-)…

Now coming back to Como. The heroes of the day are our dear amazing Italians LUCA BENNICI, Elena and CHIARA……. who did a wonderful job in helping each and every one us.  So you guys will be lucky if you have some Italians with you ( Though the university also helps you a lot for the documentation).  Thanks for their efforts we all settled here comfortably.

And regarding admissions I think the previous post explains everything about the documentation for the E.U students as the deadline is still open you can expect some posts regarding documentation later. But the rest make sure that you get your declaration of value first as thats the most important one.

Procedure for documentation of accepted students from India

Hello Friends,

I wanted to let you know the detailed procedure to get all the required documents so that yuou can get them done easily and quickly. This is applicable only for students from India. As i am from Mumbai, some procedure may be applicable for students from mumbai but it is more or less the same for students from other states.

Once you get the documents from the IMIM office like your offer letter, admission letter, residence proof, etc (which they will send you), first thing you must do it to apply for the Spain Visa. It generally takes 3-4 weeks before you get your visa but it is subjective. It may take longer in special cases. There are 3 spanish consulates in India. One in New Delhi, one in Mumbai and one in Assam (not sure abt the reliability of the one in Assam). Well, for the Visa application, you need to fill in the form which you can download online from thier website. ALong with the form attach all the documents as mentioned on their site. Do not take a DD as written on the site. If you are an Erasmus Mundus student, its free for you. but please confirm , in case they have changes the rules.

Also, take one copy of all your certificates, mark sheet sand get them attested by the Spanish consulate. You will require them in Madrid.

Now, the next important document is Declaration of Value. For this, there is a long procedure. This document is issued by the Italian Consulate in India. It is a proof that you have equivalent degree to undertake this masters course in Italy. But to give you this, the consulate requires an Apostile on your degree certificate. We will come to this later.

First you need to get your degree certificate attested by the university that issued it. For eg, if you have a deree certificate from University of Mumbai, you need to go to Kalina campus in Santacruz to get this attestation. There you need to go to the Examination office building and get thsi attestation. Before that, you need to remove the lamination from the rear of your degree certificate (if any lamination priviously exists). Remove maximum lamination as possible as you will need all the space that isd available. There are a lot of stamps. It takes abt 2-3 weeks to get this attestation and you also need to pay around Rs.500-700 for getting it. In case you find a tricky person, bribe him and you can get your job done in a week.

Once this is done, you go and get a notary stamp on the certificate. Remember, all these stamps must be taken on the original degree certificate/s (only bachelors or Masters and Bachelors as the case may be). After getting the notary done, which looks like a half dozen stamps on your certificate, its time to get a goverment attestation. This procedure here onwards, is specific to Maharashtra state. Similar procedure must exist in other states as well. Please find out abt it, if this is not applicable to you.

Opposite to Mantralaya, there is a huge tall building. There on the 18th or 20th floor, you need to get one attestation. it is the same floor where you get stamps for the working permits to work outside India. You can just ask anyopne there and get the exact location in the building. This is the only attestation that is free of cost. Once you have got this one, you now need to go to the education department in the Mantralaya. The timings for this department s in the afterrnoon after 3pm. Find out exact timings before you go. There you need to submit your originals for attestation. This attestation is a pre-requisit for you to get the Apostile sticker. This takes abt 1-2 weeks. Once you get this, now you need to go to the Office of External Affairs Ministry, Patiala House, New delhi. This is the only place in India where you can get the Apostile done. So don't even think abt finding other options. It is a one days job. So not a big deal. Just take a Rs.50 post DD available at any post office in India. You can also get one outside Patiala house. Now here you need to show your indian skills. its a mess in there, People from all over the place are there to get Apostile. So you need to get inthe right queue and submit you document befor lunch time. Only if this done, you can get the Apostile stamp in the evening else you wait till the next day.

Once you get Apostile sticker, you have completed half part of the race. Take photo copies of all degree certificates that you got Apostile and now you need to translate them into Italian language. For doing the same, you can go to Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce near Siddhivinayak Temple, in Mumbai. Tell them what you want them for and they will do all the necessary work. It takes abt 4-5 days for this translation process and they charge you per word basis so may turn out to be a bit expensive. In case you know any other place, its your choice.

Once you have translated, take all those documents to the Italian consulate near Pedder road, Mumbai. You need to get these translated documents attested from the Italian consulate. It takes abt 2-3 weeks because these guys are too lazy. If i am not wrong, this is done free of cost. Only things is that you always need to push them to get your work done.

Thats it. You have achieved an olympic gold if you do all this by yourself. So start now and take the lead. All the best to you !!!

In case you have any more quesries, do write to me.

Listos para MILAN

Hi everyone I'm one of the students from the 5th IMIM edition, a little about me, My name is Alfredo Casados, I'm from Mexico, I did my B.S. in computer science, graduated from Tecnologico de Monterrey, it had been already 6 months since we had our first class at UPM, now we are ready to leave España and go to Italia, for the spring term. The semester here in Madrid was awesome, in every aspect I can think about it, the city is just great, it can offer almost everything for anybody, from culture to extreme partying.

The quality of the topics and of the professors is really good, this first semester was into a management point of view and they it was covered was awesome, this batch have different engineering backgrounds some of us didn't have any topics related in college of in working experience with the topics covered in this semester, but the program is so good that now we are familiar with concepts about accounting and finance that in my opinion are some how difficult to get if your B.S. is in engineering.

For the Latin applicants you will find a little piece of your countries here (also indians and Chinese people), but specially latinos, for other cultures it will be a great opportunity to know in the first stop Spain, the country has too much to offer in the trips along the semester(some are organized by the school, the rest we did it), every city is unique and special, I personally expended time in the north, in Galicia and Asturias, is an amazing part of Spain "greener" as you may notice once you arrive to Madrid that is dry, one constant in every city, is the people, spaniards are welcoming people and very open to meet foreigners.

In general I don't think anyone from the current batch can complain about Spain, the party time was great, the studying time was hard but all was and is worthy.

I hope you guys enjoy Spain, as much as we did

Cheers!

Location for UPM Campus

Well guys, this is the location of the school, since some of you are going to get the admission mail in the next comings months, we think is better for you to know exactly where is place the UPM campus, to once you got the admission mail, start looking for proper accommodations near campus (if some of you are feeling to live near campus).

View Larger Map

What after Applying

Sorry guys we were having exams and this is shifting time to the new place for all of us so its a little difficult for us to keep posting. Now anyways we are finished with all the exams  except a paper to submit.  We partied a little and started packing things all set to go to Milan ( Como actually).

Recently there were so many queries on the admission status in the online application tool of the university. I have no idea on that status in the site but will try to find information about it.

The most important thing all the applicants should know is your final selection will be informed to you by email. Please be relaxed till then. The process goes on like this. First I think its some where in the third week of March that they inform you about your status. If you are a non European student applying for erasmus mundus scholarship, there are two lists one the main list and the other reserve list. You will be informed about the list in which you are.  These lists are then sent to the European union which will grant the scholar ship. The reserve list is the back up list. If someone from the main list drops then they pass the scholarship to the reserve list students. Mostly all the students in the main list will get  scholarships. The number of scholarships each year changes. As you all might have also known that the scholarships for each country are also limited. So we think this info might help you a little.

*All the views expressed here are purely personal and has got nothing to do with the university. The facts mentioned above might change as the admission process is confidential and none of us have complete idea on it. So please take this only as our experience but not as rigid facts.

Feels good to be in IMIM

Hi,

I am a student from India and have joined the latest edition of IMIM in September 2008. I have completed my five year Integrated Master’s Program at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. I graduated in July 2007 with a Bachelors and a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Later I worked as an analyst with Deloitte Consulting in Mumbai for a year.

While planning for higher education I was looking for a course which provided a chance to work with people from all around the globe. With this perspective I started searching for different courses in Europe and finally applied to Erasmus Mundus courses and Grande Ecole in France. After being admitted to different course I chose IMIM as it was my first priority when applying, a decent scholarship provided by EU is definitely a huge plus point. Although there was not much information available online at that time regarding the course I decided to join this and I am happy I made the right decision.

For me IMIM has been a really pleasant experience with fun and studies balanced skillfully. The professors are excellent; colleagues are fun and Madrid ROCKS!!! Before coming to Madrid I was expecting a mix of people from different countries around the globe and that is exactly what we have got in this batch of IMIM. The discussions let them be on any topic are interesting with different views about an issue from Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Sometimes it might cause a paradigm shift about an issue about which previously you have been so sure about.

All of us who are currently in MADRID with IMIM have enjoyed the classes to the fullest. The classes are interactive; with professors keen to make you understand the concepts. The classes consist of practical exercises and not mere theory. The classes are taught with case basis but not just standard cases which are there in HBR or cases mentioned in the books these also include the experiences of the Professors which make it more interesting. Saying that I don’t think I need to comment on the professors who teach us, all I can say is it will be hard to find such a ‘perfect marketing mix to deliver the high rates of return absolutely risk free and with minimal investment’.

About the fun part, You need to be here to witness it, its just amazing how you can find time to go around have fun, help each other in group assignments and the staff at the university make enough efforts to teach you Spanish and make your stay pleasant by assisting you in everything you need. Icing on the cake are the trips organized by the university to places around which make you understand the culture and enjoy the beautiful Spain.

I'm coming

Finally I'm writing something here. ( Don't push me again, I'm not the last)
My name is Guo Feng, come from China. I'm 29 years old now. An old man with plenty of stories. If any young and beautiful lady is really interested in, we can contact with e-mail. :)
About my application, I knew IMIM very late from an online forum, 4 month before the deadline.
However, I am a really honest man, I tried to fulfill all the requirements. Even today, I'm not clear about which conditions does the committee consider the most, but what I know is, during the application period, I talked with some other Chinese candidates, and all of GPA, IBT and GMAT are not in the top level. So I would like to attribute my success to my educational and career background. As you know from the website of IMIM, this program prefers the candidate who has a technological or engineering background and has several years work experience. While I have a bachlor degree in nuclear engineering (maybe too technical) and nearly 5 year work experience in manufacturing companies. And I successfully combined my former experience with my purpose of joining this program in my motivation letter, which I think it's very important. ( You can contact me to have a look, just 5 euros).
Anyway, if somebody wants to get more information, please don't hesitate to contact me. Hope all of you can make it.

Best regards
Feng

My story after 18 months...

It's been 18 months now... even more since I decided to apply to IMIM...

18 months full of experiences...
18 months full of happiness...
18 months full of crazyness...
18 months full of exams...
18 months full of studies...
18 months full of sometimes not so good moments...
18 months full of parties...
18 months full of alcohol...
18 months full of trips...

18 months where I kept calculating the NPV of all my time spent here...
18 months where I learnt a lot of things...
18 months where I spent money like crazy...
18 months where I smelled a lot of glue...
18 months where I slept too much sometimes... or too few others...
18 months where I learnt 2 new languages...
18 months where I met hundreds of new people...
18 months where I got used to say "goodbye"...

18 months full of chaos and party in Madrid... along with its thousands of eramus...
18 months full of rain in Como... along with its hundreds of old people...
18 months full of snow in Stockholm... along with its incredible women...

18 months getting along with 39 strangers...
18 months where those strangers became my friends...
18 months sharing my life with these friends...

18 months that were not enought to live IMIM to the fullest...
18 months that I will never forget...
18 months that are just the fucking best in my life...

And now...
I'm ready to live the last 6 months of this my IMIM story...
6 months where I'll be working as hell...
6 months where I'll be wishing to go back to university...
6 months that will mark the end of my adventure...
but at the same time, the beginning of a "hopefully" brilliant future...

This is my story folks... my story, after 18 months in IMIM.
Cheers,
Alberto Abugaber
IMIM 4th Edition
Viva Mexico cabroneS!!