GEARE Passport 2024: Spain

This fall, we welcome the 2024 GEARE cohort back to West Lafayette from their adventures abroad! As we greet returning friends, we also bid farewell to those departing for their spring travels. As the 2025 cohort prepares for their own travels, we wanted to share the thoughts and advice of returning students. Over the next weeks, we will share the stories of six students who went abroad in East Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa and hear what advice they offer for having a successful experience. In this week’s post, Sandra Bern, the GEARE Ambassador president, has agreed to share her story regarding studying abroad in Europe.

 Sandra is a Senior in Mechanical Engineering who recently returned from studying in Spain at Charles 3 University of Madrid in Spring 2024. She completed her work experience at the Swiss university OST in Summer 2024, where she completed research in battery development. Among the highlights of her abroad experience, she highly recommended the Fallas festival in Valencia, a five-day community celebration recognizing the unique heritage of the city's distinct districts. The celebration is complimented with a wide variety of art, food, music, and pyrotechnic displays.

 Sandra offered many pieces of advice applicable to all those going abroad. Her first and most important recommendation was to be open-minded and flexible. “Being open-minded is the most important part of the GEARE program because you never know what experiences will come your way.” Before going abroad, she had assumed she would be working in Spain and had not considered a position in Switzerland, but it ended up enhancing her cultural experience. Learning “how to work with people in a different type of culture, especially when there's a language barrier” greatly improved her cultural experience. One of the things she said helped prepare her was having an executive position in various clubs, as she noted, “I think any executive position on any board, regardless of if it's technical if it's not, teaches you how to work with different people and prepares you to be a bit more flexible.”

When reflecting on her time in Spain, she offered several specific recommendations. She noted that schooling in Spain is quite different from Purdue: "TAs, office hours, things like that are essentially non-existent—you have to seek help outside the university." She also emphasized the importance of time management, saying, "You have 10 times the social life you have at Purdue, while still doing school." To maximize the international experience in Madrid, she advised avoiding the Purdue bubble. Erasmus, the European exchange network, was a great way to meet people from all over, and many students chose to live with host families to further immerse themselves. She opted to live in an apartment in central Madrid, which was convenient. “I used a website, Aluni to find housing. A lot of people do not recommend using a website because of scams but Aluni worked.”

Sandra made travel a top priority during her time in Europe. Her advice for those wanting to do the same is to plan the places you want to visit but also allow yourself time to rest on weekends to avoid burnout. When arranging travel, she recommended using Skyscanner for finding weekend trips and making travel plans. She also encouraged others to not let the prospect of traveling alone deter you from going to the places you want to see. Sandra left readers with this final thought: “Don’t regret not doing something because you’re going to experience so many amazing things.”

Wyatt Gay

Mechanical Engineering ‘26

Mandarin/Hong Kong