Preparing for Year Abroad

I thought I would post on some of my experiences preparing for Year Abroad, as everyone I have spoken to has found it just as confusing and stressful as me.

Step One: Choosing a destination

This will obviously be mainly dictated by your degree, I read History and Hispanic Studies so I was obviously going to go to a Spanish speaking country. The obvious choice was Spain, I did take a lot of time to think about my other options though, and perhaps somewhere in Latin America would suit me better? I really fancied going to Cuba because of its history, and I have visited previously and loved it, but then there was also Argentina, where my tutor told me I wouldn’t be too obviously foreign. Which would be a miracle for me, being pale and ginger, in most Spanish speaking countries that would be more than enough for me to stick out!  

In the end I decided that Spain would perhaps be the better option for me, as not only was it cheaper, but I haven’t seen that much of Spain, I prefer to do my travelling further afield, so perhaps in the future I will neglect Spain a little, best to spend a year there now just in case! Also it was close to my family and friends for the year, so a great opportunity to do some European travel, visiting other friends who are doing Erasmus courses elsewhere in Europe. There was also the Erasmus grant which would make things a lot more affordable.

So, having decided on a country I then had to select a host institution, I wanted somewhere near the coast and that wasn’t too big. I wanted to be able to really know the place that I was spending the year rather than miss out on lots because of the size of it. I also thought about the History side of my degree, I wanted somewhere with a wealth of history for me to explore over the year, and of course somewhere that wasn’t overly touristy. I then had to think a bit about how I would get there, was there a nearby airport that flew from England? Or would I have to take busses and coaches for hours upon arrival? This narrowed my list of options, from there on I looked into the potential uni’s using folders full of useful information from students who had previously attended there at my university. There were a few universities that caught my eye, one in particular –Cádiz. I also tried to find out some information from www.thirdyearabroad.com which had been recommended by my university, however the only account on there was from a girl who didn’t enjoy her time in Cádiz, her main reason for this was that Cádiz was a ‘male-centric not very progressive part of Spain’ and that you shouldn’t pack short skirts. This was the only review of Cádiz on the site, which was a little worrying, but after doing some extensive Googling and pouring over the reviews from people at my university I decided to go with my gut and put Cádiz as my first choice. Salamanca and Malaga were my second and third choices respectively.

Step Two: Wait

And wait... And wait... My university were almost a month late in announcing peoples Year Abroad allocations, which meant that until February we were pretty much left in limbo. I wanted to start preparing something, but not knowing where I was going made this pretty much impossible, so I spent some time reading over Year Abroad websites and finally coming across Erasmusu.com. Then out of nowhere the selections were put up online and after the frantic trying to get the list up on my stupid internet on my phone mid-lecture, which took forever, I found out that I had been allocated Cádiz – score!

Step Three: Forms, forms and more forms

After finding out where we were going for our Year Abroad that was pretty much it until April, despite there being meetings scheduled to tell us about it they were all cancelled, so we just waited and started to grow more and more concerned. Then all of a sudden there was an e-mail with what seemed like a million and one attachments with forms to complete from my home university, none of which I understood what to do with, and then an e-mail from Cádiz with a link to the possible classes that I could choose from. But that was all it was, there were no class descriptions, only titles of classes and how many credits they were worth. A couple of weeks later we finally had talk about Year Abroad, unfortunately it was less than helpful, just sort of said make the most of it and make sure you fill in all the forms by the end of may, oh and sort out student finance and this other massive list of stuff that wasn’t included on the e-mail.

From then on I was somewhat overwhelmed by everything that I had to do all of a sudden, there were big choices to be made and so much to do. I had to complete a Learning Agreement, detailing all of the classes that I wanted to take and get that signed and stamped by both universities, complete a mobility contract, complete the insurance forms for university and adjust my Student Finance so that I received more maintenance loan and pay zero tuition fee, on top of this I had to sign up for the Erasmus grant. My best advice is to try and remain calm, cuss your university for not helping out – unless they do then count yourself lucky, discuss everything with your friends and other people on your course they are going through the same thing as you and sometimes know a bit of useful information that can help you out. Also, chase your university up as if they are anything like mine they will forget to send forms, or lose them or just not tell you when they have been returned and you need to do something with them. But persevere, I was still doing forms until two weeks before I flew out to Spain, don’t even get me started on Student Finance!

Step Four: Finding Accommodation

When deciding what to do with accommodation you have two main options, find a flat before you arrive and move straight in, or book into a hostel / hotel and find accommodation once you arrive. Both have their pro’s and con’s, you just have to decide which you think is the best option for you, many people will advise not putting a deposit down until you have seen a flat, but this is what I did, fully understanding the risks, and it paid off! I love my flat and much preferred moving straight in rather than going to a hostel. Just make sure if you do decide to arrive and then find a place that you have a hostel booked for more than just a day, yes some people do find flats that quickly but most people don’t, you can always cancel nights at a hostel if you book too many, but finding a place if the hostels are full can be difficult.

To find my flat I used easypiso.com, it was really annoying as you have to be a premium member to read and send messages properly, so I never bothered messaging basic members, as a basic member myself it would have been pointless. I messaged a few people who were looking to share rooms, as well as a few people who were renting out flats, one caught my eye as it was in a good location (if my research was to be believed), lots of people had registered their interest in the flat so I sent of a message to see if there were rooms still available, one room had already been reserved. I sent the owner of the flat, Ana, lots of questions as well as asking for lots of pictures of the flat, she seemed very genuine and the flat looked lovely from the photos. Ana couldn’t have been more helpful she encouraged me to ask questions and often provided me with extra useful information. Ideally I would have visited the flat, I asked Ana if this was possible, however because she rents it out over the summer (presumably to holidaymakers) there was only one day available and it would have been quite a push for me to get there on that day, as it was between two holidays I was taking. So I asked instead if she could put me in touch with people who had previously rented the flat, so that I could ask them of their experiences, I figured it was the next best thing to going there myself. Ana sent me a long list of e-mails and names and I sent out some messages to the English-speaking ones, didn’t want any miscommunication on something as important as this. I got a few responses and all were positive, one person said there had been no wifi in the flat and advised me to buy my own dongle, but I checked with Ana and she assured me that she had since purchased a modem and there was wifi included in the flat. I checked out the people I had e-mailed just to make sure that Ana was not deceiving me, and happy enough that my money would be safe I paid the deposit. What I mean by I paid the deposit is that I paid my dad the money and he paid it on his credit card, so that it was insured –just in case!

I decided at this point to relax as I was headed on holiday, however I got an e-mail two weeks into my holiday in Australia from Ana saying that my deposit hadn’t arrived – panic stations! I Skyped my dad and told him that he had to get onto the bank to check the progress of the transaction as it should have gone through within 3 days. There was no way I was losing my room in a flat on some banking error, which is what it turned out to be, the bank had forgotten to ask the name of the payee for the transaction and had therefore not completed it, and instead of ringing us to check what the name was they just ignored it. The error was soon corrected and the bank offered us compensation, which after all the stress was very much appreciated. A week or so later Ana sent me a message with the names and e-mails of the other girls who would be sharing the flat with me so that we could get to know each other beforehand which was really nice.

Step 5: Travel

So, you know where you are going, but how are you going to get there? Most of this research had been done when deciding which university to go to however the plan needed some fine tuning, just to make sure there were no last minute hiccoughs. We planned how I would get to the airport in England (I live in Birmingham and have to fly from London Stansted), how I would get from Jerez to Cádiz, and from the Cádiz train station to my flat. Ana was very helpful with the last part, providing me with detailed instructions and photos to help. Then I had to book the flight – Scary! The only airline I could fly with was Ryanair, so I knew that I would have to be really careful with my luggage allowance as they are very strict. One 20kg bag to fit my life into – how was that going to work?! With all of the travel planned – it turned out a girl from my university was going to be on the same flight there was only one thing left to do, possibly the most difficult thing of all... packing.