Author; Lyndsey Morgan | Major: Math | Semester: Summer 2025
Museo Nacional del Prado: Admiring the statue of Diego Velázquez outside my favorite museum in Madrid! In fact, we discussed Velázquez at length in my history-centered class at Nebrija.
In June 2025, I studied for a month in Madrid, Spain. While my surface-level intentions were to take two classes that would contribute to my Spanish minor requirements and to increase my skills within the language itself, I hoped that this experience would also bring about profound personal growth and enlighten me about Spanish culture itself. I wanted to learn what makes our cultures different and distinctly beautiful by focusing on what we all have in common: our humanity.
I chose Madrid specifically as it is such a lively city with not only endless activities from which to choose but also incredible public transportation throughout the entire city. In fact, Madrid is known for having some of the most affordable public transport! As I have never lived in the heart of a city before, I yearned for the opportunity to utilize these routes and have all of these social options within arm’s reach. In the end, these choices proved to be one of my favorite aspects of both the program and city I chose.
One of my favorite afternoons I spent while abroad was at Parque Warner (Warner Bros. Park), which is about an hour outside central Madrid by bus. I absolutely love going to theme parks in the States, and this experience was no different—despite the heat advisory! I was pleasantly surprised to ride some of the best rollercoasters of my life in this park. While many of my experiences while studying abroad allowed me to notice and appreciate the differences between two cultures, Parque Warner reminded me that many aspects of cultures around the world are not all that different from my own.
Overall, daily activities after class truly made the whole experience, like lunch at local restaurants and shopping in Salamanca or on Gran Vía with classmates. I also saw Mamma Mia at a theater with friends one evening, and the experience was unforgettable! Seeing musicals and movies is, again, something I enjoy at home, so choosing to see them through the eyes of another culture resonated with me even more so. Madrid is so lively, especially in the summer, and I never found myself without something to do. Finding an activity was never a question of “if,” but rather, a question of “which one.”
As far as the academic aspects of my program, I do not have a bad word to say against Universidad Nebrija. The professors—as well as the class content they introduced—were stellar, and they truly showed up each day with the intention of helping us improve our language skills. Though my two classes were heavily based in composition and history, respectively, my classmates and I were allowed the space to practice our listening and speaking skills one hundred percent of the time. In this way, not only were we immersed in our classrooms, but we could also carry each thing we learned into our everyday lives in the city.
I surely gained a newfound appreciation for the patience my past, present, and future professors practice with second-language learners as well. Without a doubt, I will strive to practice this same patience throughout the rest of my life, especially in my current role as a tutor and in my future career as a teacher. Of course, the entire experience brought about tons of humility—both as a second-language learner and as a young college student. But ultimately, I have grown more confident in everyday social settings (in both languages!) as a result of studying abroad, and I cannot wait to carry these lessons forward into the coming semester and beyond.