My name is Nia Richards, and I am a final year student studying Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Manchester. As part of my degree, my third year consisted of a year studying abroad, immersing myself in another country; getting to immerse myself in another culture different to my own, whilst being in an environment where I constantly practised my languages.

As I study a joint honours degree, I decided to split my year evenly and undertake the first semester studying in Portugal and the second semester studying in Spain. For languages, you can spend your year abroad either studying with a partner university or working (where you are required to source your own work scheme/ placement). I wanted to study and be in a “student” environment because I wanted to experience my year with likeminded people, who were either Erasmus students going through their year abroad, the same as me, or with native students in the countries I was studying in. There are many different routes you can take when deciding how you want to spend your third year abroad – for instance, UoM has links to universities in Latin and South America in countries such as Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico etc. Personally, there were cities in Europe that I wanted to experience more than going further afield to only stay for 5 months.

In September 2022, I flew to Porto, Portugal to start my study abroad experience. Honestly, I was extremely nervous because I didn’t know what to expect – if I would meet anyone or what the city was like. Porto was a city I had never heard too much about, however I could not have been surprised when I arrived. To this day, it is my favourite city I have ever visited, in and out of Europe. It was a perfect mixture of great nightlife with lots of young people to meet, but equally a quiet city with lots of beautiful scenery. I was studying at the “Faculdade de Letras” (Factulty of Arts and Humanities), and I lived in an accommodation recommended to me by the University of Porto, which was only a 10 minute walk to my campus. We spent many evenings at Foz beach or down by the river listening to buskers and watching the sunset.

In January 2023, I was so unbelievably excited to fly to Madrid, Spain to live in the city centre with my best friend. We were both studying at the University of Alcalá de Henares, which is located just outside of Madrid city centre. However, Alcalá itself is a very small town and I really wanted to experience city life, so we decided to rent a flat in the city centre and commute into university. It was tiring, but extremely worthwhile and travel in Madrid, especially for a student, is very cheap (we paid €8 per month for unlimited travel on trains and the metro across the entire region of Madrid). We met so many people in Madrid, as well as connected with many students native and Erasmus in Alcalá as well. Studying was challenging at times, but it has massively helped improve my languages, and my confidence to be able to speak to anyone and navigate the world.

Written by Nia Richards, a final year BA Spanish and Portuguese student

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