Valencia - studying at the UPV

I studied at the Polytechnic University of Valencia(UPV) and I really enjoyed it. The staff in the international office in my faculty (Design Engineering) were always helpful and friendly and I didn't have any problems regarding my application, studies and extension. I extended my stay from one semester to two because I wanted to improve my Spanish even more and felt that five months was simply too short.

In the winter semester I took some really interesting courses and really enjoyed the lessons. I'd highly recommend these Design Engineering courses to people who are interested in (product) design:

• Taller de Diseño I
• Diseño gráfico y communicación
• Diseño Estratégico

I took all my classes in Spanish which was fine because I didn't have to write any long essays etc, only participate in projects and group work. To be able to understand the lecturers, you should have level B1 Spanish. Some of the lecturers speak really quickly and most of them (especially the ones from Valencia) don't speak English. I'll talk more about the language later.

In the summer semester, I was only interested in a few courses and few were relevant to my studies in Germany. So I took a class in the Bellas Artes faculty. You are allowed to take classes from other faculties and it made sense for my degree to do so (because it's computing and design). But I know that it's different in every uni. For me it was quite easy and I'm so glad!

Compared to my home university, the UPV is huge - especially the campus which is wonderful. The campus is like a district of the city and has a bank, doctors, pharmacy, restaurants, gyms and much more.

The UPV is known for its sports facilities and that is obvious as soon as you arrive on campus. There are tennis courts, a small sports field and climbing walls. You can get a membership to the sports facilities at quite a low cost per semester (with this, you can try all sports and classes).

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