Study Abroad Report
MA Euroculture in Bilbao, Spain
Erasmus Mundus Master Euroculture Mobility period: 01-02-2018 until 01-07-2018 Sending institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Receiving institution: Universidad de Deusto
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Introduction
The first time I heard of the city of Bilbao was when a lecturer in class described the ‘Bilbao effect’: the idea that attracting a world-class cultural institution, such as the Guggenheim, will give a boost to your city. From February 2018 until July 2018 I undertook an exchange to Bilbao, at the Universidad de Deusto in Spain. During my stay in Bilbao, this cultural institution at the heart of the city, fascinated me. But besides this, I also got to know a city that is beautiful, clean, green and friendly and an academic culture that was open, welcoming, stimulating and engaging. In this report I will share this experience. First, I will elaborate on the practical side of my visit to Bilbao. Second, I will share how I experienced the quality of teaching and the courses I took. Third, I will share some general observations about my stay in Bilbao. Practical information When moving abroad, one of the first challenges is to find suitable housing. However, the university of Deusto made this process really uncomplicated. Students could visit the website, and go to a link that showed a map with all the available accommodations in the city. If you clicked on one of the houses of the map, you could see pictures and prices of the house. The next step was to fill in a list of your top three accommodations, and then the university would allocate one of these to you. Via this process, I easily found suitable housing within a couple of weeks.
The second challenge is to arrange all your academic and personal documents with the receiving institutions. This was a bit more challenging, as our teachers in Bilbao warned us. The university needed all original academic papers, which caused problems for some students since they did not bring these. Moreover, we needed to get a personal number at the municipality, which was also quite hard to arrange. In coordinating these different things, we had helpful support from both the host and home institution. They would both quickly reply to questions and help students as much as possible. For instance, they were both helpful in arranging the documents for the Erasmus Funding. Moreover, it was easy to sign up for Spanish lessons. The university of Deusto automatically subscribes you to these after you have indicated your level, and they are free of charge. Furthermore, living in Bilbao was not that expensive. The prices of food were very low (a decent meal for €5 and a three course meal for €15), and the supermarket food was also very cheap. My estimated expenses per month were €80 on food, €380 on housing, and €50 on other expenses.
Academic environment
During my stay in Bilbao, I attended three courses that were part of the Euroculture programme. Our first course was ‘Europe in the wider World’ (10 ECTS), which focussed on the role of Europe in contemporary international relations and adopted an interdisciplinary perspective including political, economic and cultural factors. The course introduced me to the field of international relations, which I found very
3 interesting. There was a specific geographical focus on the relationships between the EU and India and EU and the Latin American region. The assessment of this course was made up by an essay (10-12 pages) on a geographical area of specialisation. Second, I attended the ‘Methodology and Theory Seminar’ (10 ECTS), made up by a qualitative and quantitative part. I had no experience with quantitative research in my Bachelors, so it was very interesting and insightful to learn the basics of SPSS. Moreover, the qualitative part helped me to sharpen my research designs. Third, I attended the course ‘Eurocompetence II’ (5 ECTS) which was focussed on Project Management. The course focussed on different aspects of project management, including planning and time management, communication skills and reporting. Specific attention was paid to humanitarian action and European cultural projects and programmes.
In general, I am very positive of the quality of education we received. We had close personal contact with the teachers, since we were a small group of students. Classes were most often of a seminar format, where we were encouraged and expected to
participate actively when discussing readings and presenting our work. This led to
many interesting and insightful discussions in class. What surprised me in the beginning, was that we had many different teachers for one course: each course was taught by two or more teachers. In the beginning, this was a bit confusing for me, but after a while I saw the benefits of encountering the knowledge of many teachers with different areas of expertise.
Assessments were typically based on written assignments or projects rather than final exams. However, it was not clear from the beginning how we would be graded. With one course, we only heard class participation was part of the grade after the course had ended. Only after we had asked many times, we received an overview of how the different grades of our courses were constituted. Moreover, the guidelines for papers were often vague and very broad. For the ‘Europe in a Wider World’ course we could write on any topic we liked, as long as it was somehow linked to what we discussed in class. Then we simply had to hand it in at the end of the semester. I personally prefer an assessment method in which you have several feedback moments with the teachers, so that you can still improve your work and
reach a higher level of quality.
General comments
In general I really enjoyed my stay in Bilbao. The food is great, the people are friendly, the nature surrounding the city is beautiful and easy to access and there are many cultural events to attend. The only problem I encountered was a language barrier, since I do not speak Spanish, but as soon as you master a very basic vocabulary these problems are solved. I would recommend every student to study at the Universidad de Deusto, especially if you are looking for a personal academic environment, a thriving cultural city, beautiful nature and a delicious Basque cuisine.
