Aside from all the fun, courses are a huge part of your study abroad experience. However, in my case, most courses are, gladly, fun too. Below, I will describe the five classes I am taking here at I.E. University, Madrid, for all those who are interested in choosing this university as your host institution. For those who are not, this will hopefully give you a glimpse of how courses work in Madrid in general, and how they are both different and similar to the courses back at Northeastern.
I.E. has a 70%/30% course rule for exchange students, which means that you must choose the majority of courses from within your field of study. So, as a Communications Studies Major, I selected four communication courses and one Entrepreneurship course (as one of my minors is Entrepreneurship). Before diving deep in each course’s specifics, I will first give you a brief overview of how the school system works at I.E. University.
Firstly, I must highlight that, I.E. is a private institution and is very international, like Northeastern. I say this because I have made friends that go to other, more traditionally Spanish Universities here in Madrid, and their school system varies a lot. At I.E., the vast majority of courses are taught in English, and you will interact with classmates from all over the world. However, you must keep in mind one thing: At I.E., you will take most of the courses with the same group of students, who have been together since day one of freshman year. Unlike Northeastern, where you can choose your classes and merge your fields of interests, all I.E. students from the same major take the same courses together for the four years. Their schedule is already set, whereas I was used to more flexibility back in Boston. But change is a good thing. On top of that, this makes it easier to establish a “bond,” as the majority of students face the same assignments and busy weeks; while, when you make your own individual schedule, you are pretty much on your own. Yet, despite how I share three classes with the “third-year communication group,” as an exchange student, I was given the opportunity to take an entrepreneurship elective and a fourth-year communication course. This means that if you come here as an exchange student, you will be allowed more flexibility regarding course choices.
Another thing that has caught my attention here at I.E., is how most (if not all) courses are based on weekly three-hour blocks. Yes, this means you only have the same class once every week; this is great as you will usually have a full week to prepare for any given project or exam, and there tends to be less overlap with other courses’ assignments. However, I must admit that I was used to Northeastern’s one-and-a-half-hour blocks, three times per week. During my first weeks here, it was very hard staying focused for three hours straight. Luckily, professors give us a 15 to 20-minute “merienda” (snack) break to prevent us from getting too overloaded with information.
If you are a Communications Studies Major at Northeastern, keep in mind that, here at I.E., the major is called “Communication and Digital Media.” Like Northeastern, I.E. is a very business-oriented University, which is clearly conveyed in all its communication courses. Now, I will get to the nitty-gritty of the courses I am taking, which are: Advertising Creativity, Advertising Management and Media Distribution, Multimedia Narrative and Interactive Design, Consulting for Communication, and Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
If you are interested in the innovative-thinking side of advertising, Advertising Creativity might be the right course for you. In this course, I get the feeling that I am working for an advertising agency, as I must come up with different, groundbreaking ideas that are worth pitching to a client and worth developing. So far, in one month, we have been assigned two different campaigns (for different brands) that range all the way from digital to print and radio. After learning how each media channel works and differs from each other, it is your turn to apply your own ideas and hand in briefs, storyboards, scripts, design examples, and any other possible thing that can make you campaign an award-winning one.
Advertising Management and Media Distribution, on the other hand, leans more towards the back-end side of advertising. The whole course is based on a semester-long project for a brand’s campaign in which you must come up with an innovative idea (you can choose whether to focus on a product launch campaign, a re-branding campaign, or a campaign for social awareness, to name a few). However, despite involving creativity, this class dives deep into the details of the buying process, target audience selection and analysis, competition, campaign budgeting and expenditure, media selection, and more! When reading this, it does sound like a lot of information (and it is!), yet it is, undoubtedly, extremely beneficial to understand how the advertising and branding industries work. The more you learn lecture-wise, the more you apply as you go further with your project. So far, I can say that this course really does give you a full scope of the industry from beginning to end.
Moving on, Multimedia Narrative and Interactive Design is a very innovative, hands-on course. As a Communications Studies Major, I am not really that much into technology. But, in the era that we live in, we must keep up with all the new tools and techniques available. So, I am happy to be taking this course as, in each class, you work with a new program or online software and hand in a task or “deliverable” (which expands my tech knowledge, despite it not being my forte.) My favorite part is how it all ties in with storytelling. For instance, last week we worked on creating a story in which the platform user or audience could choose the different courses or directions the story would take; so, you, as the creator, must make sure that your narrative is extremely interactive as it must allow the user to “craft” their own ending (like a video game!). This class also merges in a lot of data and teaches us how to make it interactive. For example, during one session, we had to create a survey on any chosen topic (relevant to our audience), send it via messaging or social media to our friends, gather and analyze their responses, and, lastly, create a fun and engaging infographic. Yes, all this in one session! This course will surely keep you entertained.
Moreover, as I mentioned before, I am taking one fourth-year (senior) communications course, which is Consulting for Communication. In this course, we were separated into teams, and every team has a different consulting purpose and a client (brand). For instance, you might choose between advising a client regarding their corporate social responsibility, brand messaging, internal communication strategies, and so on. In my case, choosing one was an easy task! As a Global Fashion Studies minor, I was drawn into the corporate social responsibility consulting as, in this case, your “client” is a big fast-fashion brand. As you go along the course, you will go step by step in the consulting process, and you will get a lot of one-on-one time between your group and the Professor (the “client”) while you construct your final consultancy proposal. This is the first consulting-related course I have ever taken, and I believe I made the right choice. Thus, aside from learning about branding and advertising, I think it is essential to explore other opportunities within the communication field before I graduate.
Last but not least, I am taking an entrepreneurship course called Entrepreneurship & Innovation. I like this course as it gives me a break from all the communication-related information that I am handling. This course is very discussion-based, which I love. For each session, we have assigned readings and cases; its impressive all the interesting information that pops-up during business-related discussions with students from all over the world. As you learn about the different steps of the entrepreneurship process and all the terminology that it entails, you are also working on a main, semester-long group project which basically consists of launching your innovative product or service. I really like this aspect of the course as it makes it seem less content-heavy, and it makes it easier for me to retain all the details of the entrepreneurship and market-entry process by “applying” them. The project has just been recently assigned, so it is in its early stages. Yet, I predict that I will have a very successful learning experience by having to dive deep into the entrepreneurial mindset.
Overall, so far, I have had wonderful experiences regarding my courses. Even if you do not choose the same classes I did, I hope you were still able to sense a general vibe of the course dynamic at I.E. University. As you might know, Madrid is an extremely entertaining city, with countless things to do and tons of places to explore. So, yes, it does get tough sometimes when handling heavy school work and having to find balance. But, as I move along and gain more experience (both school and lifestyle-wise), I will make sure to keep you posted on tips to find a balanced, fun middle-ground while keeping track of course-work.
