Experience at the Technical University of Madrid, Spain by Daniel

What was the Technical University of Madrid like in general?

According to the Spanish University ranking, it's one of the best, but that's not a very reliable statistic, since, within the Technical University of Madrid there's architecture, engineering, technical course and higher level courses. Some of them are good and some of them are bad. Some of them have budgets for doing practicals and some of them don't have the budget.

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What are the facilities like?

The usual, classrooms with desks and projectors, computer suites...

And the professors?

I'll say again that at this university the departments have nothing to do with one another or with a university. For example, my departments is for Technical Architecture and there are very few good professors in it. A lot of them aren't actually proper professors by trade, it was their brother in law, wife, brother, friends... So they haven't actually got to where they are by being the best at what they do compared to other people. They teach really badly, they talk to students in a really arrogant way a lot of the time. A lot of them teach with materials or finishes that are from 30 years ago and no one uses anymore, and they teach the structural syllabus with obsolete techniques that you don't see or get taught anymore because they have stopped being used. We don't get anywhere near the computers for the entirety of the course, nor do we go to see any work in real life to learn from. But I know that they get all this in Higher Architecture or roadworks and we belong to the university all the same.

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Is it easy to pass at the Technical University of Madrid?

No, I have friends who studied the exam perfectly and who have literally copied it and been suspended. The statistics show only a 2/3% pass rate sometimes. It's not that the exams are particularly difficult but rather the professors make it very hard for people to pass them. Doing well in an exam almost never equals a good grade, however, on other courses, if you just put your working out of the exercise, they'll give you points for it.

What are the events that the university puts on like?

In my department, Technical Architecture, they don't organise anything apart from the party week for sports, but the actual academia there itself is terrible. But I'll say again that, on other courses, they do educational trips to see works of architecture in situ from the first month of classes.

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Do you think they provide a good education there?

Absolutely not. There's a lot of useless filler and they don't teach you what you actually need. You'll learn by working, the degree is just the ticket to getting into the work. However, they definitely do more to prepare you in engineering, roadworks, architecture, etc. They give you more preparation by focusing on what you'll actually encounter when you'll be working in the future.

Do you have any anecdotes to share?

I have a lot of them, good ones as well as bad ones. Make some good friends, I know that doesn't count as an anecdote but it's my advice.

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