Exam time in Universidad de Valencia

This post is coming a bit late, I was pretty busy in the past days but here it is...

The thought of exams here in Valencia did not really cross my mind until January hit. During the year you are busy with other stuff common for Erasmus students like partying and making the most of your year abroad (although there is a fair share of studying involved too, especially if you have subjects where the lecturer asks for work every single week or where you don't have an exam, only continuous assesment).

The whole process is a lot more relaxed here (like everything else for that matter!!). In fact, when I presented myself for my first exam I felt like I was going more to a normal, everyday test and not to a end-of-semester exam. For Irish people, and especially those studying at UCD, that might seem a bit odd because the system at home is a lot stricter and complicated. While at home you cannot enter the exam hall if you do not show your student card, here in Valencia you go in the classroom and nobody even looks at you. Nobody checks your ID or student card (which does not have a picture on it so therefore anybody can show up to your exam and do it for you). Your full name is written across all the exam, compared to anonimous marking in UCD, and there isn't really anything formal to it. What shocked me the most was probably that we did not know how long the exam was going to be until we got in the class.(Which by the way, was 45minutes!!). At home, exams are 2h sharp and nobody leaves before the first hour but here anybody can leave whenever they want. Oh, and there aren't any past exams papers from which you can get an idea of how the exam is going to be like. You are going in the exam without knowing what to expect!

I remember that before coming here, the people at home who just returned from Valencia were saying that the marking in not as tough (I tend to agree to that) and that exams are easier (sort of) and that teachers tend to give you preferential treatment (I dont see that at all) for being an Erasmus student. In my opinion, that is not exactly true but I guess that also depends on where you are and what subjects you are doing. I feel like we are treated exactly like the Spanish students which can be both good and bad, depending how you look at it. I am curious how the next exam is going to be like .. I'll keep you posted amigos! 

My Erasmus so far..

The first month of Erasmus is gone so here go my impressions of Spain so far... 

La Malvarosa beach, Valencia

When I first got here it felt like a holiday for the first few days.. hot weather, summer clothes and not to mention hot people! Stayed in a hotel for 3 nights before we moved in our apartment on Avenida Doctor Peset Aleixandre and let me tell you, finding an apartment that we liked proved to be much harder than we thought. The first 2 days we looked at some horrible ones we found on Idealista.com but then on the last day we visited this apartment and it looked amazing. We got it straight away because our experience until then wasn't so positive and we did not want to keep looking. From then on all hell broke loose. Shopping, trips to the police, internet provider, more police trips (for our NIE number, not anything else..yet), sorting out the bills, selecting modules for college and so on. Without exageration it was probably one of the hardest month of my life. 

While I was still in Ireland I was excited about leaving home and coming over to Valencia but one month in and I was ready to give up.. My flatmate was not doing very well either and I ever dare say she was much much worse. Skype'ing with family and friends was hard too ... Remember one night I was on Skype with my best friend for the first time and mid conversation I started crying so bad I could not breathe. I couldn't say exactly why I was crying but I was. All I wanted to do then was be home with the people I care about. 

I know it all sounds like I am an ungrateful b***h and trust me, I had days when I said the same thing. I was in a different country (a very nice country for that matter) and I was feeling miserable. Some people would give anything to go on Erasmus and here I was complaining and feeling sorry for myself. 

Our waiter gave us a free Spanish 

lesson

Then things started to change. College started, made new friends, started to know the city and the way their culture works (well, at least I was trying) and things got much better. I also learned that I wasn't the only one who felt like that, it was all part of the culture-shock of a new country. I even started reading some articles about culture shock and how it works and I was surprised by the things that I read; it seemed like the author was talking about me personally. It was relieving to hear that other people went through the same stages as I did. 
Now Valencia feels like home and to be honest, I don't even want to think of the moment when I will have to leave

everything behind: the good weather (pardon me, I meant AAAH-mazing weather), the friends I made, the beach, the tapas ... 


I guess the morale of my experience so far is that no matter how bad things seem at the beginning, they will always get better. All we need is a bit of faith and a bottle of positive attitude (maybe a bottle of something else too :D ) 

Ciudad de las artes y ciencias at night

Adios amigos