San Sebastián – Exchange report

Christian Freby
[email protected]
HT-13
Stockholm University
San Sebastián – Exchange report
Why I wanted to go abroad.
The main reason for me to go abroad was to meet
new people, get some new experience, have fun and
improve my English and Spanish. I wanted to try
something new and leave Sweden and the culture
here and to get outside my comfort zone. Why I
chose this place was just a coincidence and before I
went to San Sebastian I had never heard about it
before.
The school and the courses
The school is really nice. I liked it a lot because it was a small school with only around 1000
students, which was really nice compared to Stockholm University where you sometimes can
feel a bit lost.
The first thing about all the courses that is different from back home is that all classes are
mandatory. The school system is different too, it is more like a high school (gymnasie) with
homework and small assignments that you needed to hand in. There were also a lot of small
presentations in all subjects. I only had two final exams, in Spanish and competitive
Territories in the Global Economics. In rest of the courses we got our grades from
assignments and presentations.
Since I couldn’t speak Spanish it wasn’t that many courses to choose between. I think there
might have been around 10 courses that were given in English, and if I wanted to finish before
Christmas and not go back after Christmas to just write an exam, I could only choose between
6 or 7 courses. Every course was 6 points, except the intensive Spanish course. I strongly
recommend to take the intensive Spanish course in the beginning, even if you can´t count
them in you grades, because it is during these two weeks you meet all the new people. It took
much longer time for the once that didn’t take this course to find friends. It was also a really
good course and fun. We learnt a lot and since not many people in San Sebastian could speak
English it was good to get the basics so you could communicate some in Spanish.
The other courses I took where:
One Spanish course and it was good, but kind of easy. The teacher, Begona, was really nice
and good.
Entrepreneurship, it was a fun course and we were divided into groups and were supposed
to come up with a fun and entertaining solution to a problem that we had noticed at the
Christian Freby
[email protected]
HT-13
Stockholm University
campus. The teacher was good and we also went on some small trips to business centers and
had some entrepreneurs that were lecturing us.
Strategic distribution decision, also a good course, interesting subject were we made a lot of
research about how different corporations are handling their distributions. We also went on a
field trip to DHL. The teacher in this course was also good, Esteban.
Competitive territories in the Global Economy, it was an okay course; we mostly looked at
different clusters around the world. We had two different teachers; one was really good and
held the course the first part of the semester, but the other teacher wasn´t that good. Hard to
hear what he was saying and not that good at teaching, M. Davide Parrilli.
Last course I took was International Human Resource Management, and it was a course
that I had some mixed feeling about. I thought the subject was interesting, but the teacher was
a bit special and the workload in this course was almost as much as all the other courses
together. Every Friday we needed to hand in a summary on 6 pages. The time to read the
chapter and write a summary took a long time, but it was nice in the end of the course, since
this was what we were graded for and didn´t need to write an exam.
Housing
Before I went to Spain I read in the earlier exchange reports that you could arrange housing
when you arrived to Spain and that people who had done that previously years got both nicer
and cheaper apartments. So, I went there without a clue where to live or with whom. When I
arrived to Spain I hooked up very fast with four other person that didn´t have anywhere to live
either and we started to search for an apartment together. To be honest it was pretty hard to
find good apartments and the five first days we spent with calling and sending emails to
different renting agencies. (We got a list from our school with different agencies and
apartments owners that we could call and this list can you ask for before you go to Spain if
you want to arrange a meeting and see the apartment) Finally, we found a really good
apartment in the center of the city, close to everything. I think it was the best spot actually
because we had 5-10 minute walk to school, 10 minute to the old town, 5 minute to the beach
and all the stores were just outside the apartment. The apartment was totally new renovated
with furniture from IKEA, so it felt like home. The price for our apartment was 1500 euro a
month, which we shared between five people. This price was slightly cheaper than what
people paid when they rented through the school. Most of the other students had arranged
their housing before they arrived and that is much easier, you don’t need to think of
everything yourself and it is probably a bit safer. But, I was lucky and we probably got the
best apartment and the best price, so if you like to gamble you can try to find an apartment by
yourself.
Christian Freby
[email protected]
HT-13
Stockholm University
Cost of living
San Sebastian is one of the nicest and most expensive
cities in Spain, but it is still cheaper than in Sweden. The
food in the stores had the same price or sometimes
slightly cheaper. This depended on which store you
choose. Clothes and eating at restaurants were much
cheaper and of course also all kind of alcohol. To drink a
glass of vine at a restaurant cost around 2 Euros. So if
you have the same budget as back in Sweden you will be
able to live well and do a lot of activities and eat well.
How has the time abroad affected you
academically and personally? Have your language skills developed, if so,
how?
Of course the time abroad changed me a lot, both academically and personally. I took some
courses that were very different from what I’m used to study in Sweden, which gave me a lot.
But, if I compare the education level between Stockholm University and Deusto Business
School, Stockholm is much higher. Even if the school in Spain was one of the better Business
schools and also wanted to have a high level on their education, I received high grades in all
courses, but put less effort in to it then what I´m used to do at Stockholm University. One
thing that I became better at was presentations, since we had them all the time. In the
beginning I was very nervous to speak in front of everyone in English, but this disappeared
gradually. What I probably developed most was my language skills in English and also
Spanish. I would say that my English improved more than my expectations of it and the
Spanish less than my expectations. The reason to that were that almost all international
students were together all the time and then we only spoke English. I also lived with one guy
from Germany, so we spoke English at my house. The first week was kind of hard because I
wasn’t used to speak English that much, but eventually you didn´t thought about it and it
became almost as easy as to speak Swedish. I also developed on a Personal level. I think I
became more outgoing and also less shy. The reason was that when I come to this new place
and didn’t know anyone I needed to just let go off all fears and go with the flow.
Any highlights that you would like to share with other students?
San Sebastian is one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever visited and the food is
amazing! Every Thursday there is something that is called pintxo pote. During 19.00 to 23.00
all the bars in on part of the city (Gros) have a special offer where you get one beer/cider/wine
with a pinxo (small tapas) for 2 Euros. It is always hundreds of people in the streets during
these hours and this is something that you need to experience. There are a lot of things to do
in this city and every week the school arranges an activity like surfing, paintball, salsa, cider
house, go carting etc, for just a small amount of money and you should definitely attend! San
Sebastian is also known for its surfing and they also have a really good football team (Real
Socidad).
Christian Freby
[email protected]
HT-13
Stockholm University