Student review [#4162]
at Universidad de Málaga

I studied at the University of Malaga in 2016-17 academic year as an Erasmus student. Overall, my experience has been rather positive, however there have also been quite some downsides for my particular faculty. Organisation seems to be a bit off, in the sense that, as an exchange student, I wasn’t sure what exactly I was supposed to be doing in terms of paperwork and registering for courses, and there was no one I could consult with about my doubts. But the most disappointing experience I had was even prior to coming to Spain and starting my exchange, when the International Office “due to a lot of work” ignored my e-mails for 3 months, only sending me an invitation letter for a visa (I’m Russian) in the middle of October, several weeks after the classes had already started: very irresponsible.

As for the educational process, like at any other university there are good and not-so-good courses. Surprisingly, I was very satisfied with fully English-taught classes that I chose (I say “surprisingly” because Spanish institutions generally have somewhat of an ill fame when it comes to English proficiency). Many course were quite interesting and informative, whereas some others were too theoretical and lacked supporting materials. There’s an emphasis on self study with written assignments and group presentations. Final assessments seemed fair to me.

Faculty facilities are fine; the faculty is one of the oldest, but still there’s wi-fi, nice library with a big selection of materials (and I loved the online database of articles as well, found it super useful when writing my research papers!), cafeteria, small garden.

P.S. Tip for exchange students: study the map of the faculty in advance; I had a hard time in the beginning with finding some of the classrooms, since classes often take place in different buildings, some of which even belong to other faculties nearby. 😉