Michael Howell: Blog Post #4

Hello everyone,

March was a very eventful month, with me taking my first midterms, doing an Instagram takeover for the TCU study abroad account, and even flying 11 hours back home for just a weekend. In this post I want to talk about my experience abroad for the month of march in a real way with no pictures and only feelings.

Instagram Takeover: First, I want to start by talking about my Instagram takeover, where I took the people of Instagram along on a day of my life in Madrid. I started the day at the airport where I was flying back from a weekend trip to Switzerland and Germany, I was extremely excited to start the Instagram takeover series for the global ambassadors. However, the cold weather from the weekend had me feeling pretty sick (I’m a Texas boy), although I wasn’t feeling too good, I still managed to finish the takeover by answering some questions from the viewers and taking them along to a VIP experience at a Real Madrid basketball game, which I won from a basketball league I joined in Spain. The whole experience was amazing, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I had to share my experiences with other people who are possibly looking into the idea of studying abroad.

School in Madrid: I wouldn’t say that classes in Spain are necessarily harder than TCU classes however, when studying abroad it is easy to get lost in all of the travel and not prioritize school, which is exactly what I did. One thing to note is that school in Europe is a lot different, while professors at TCU are willing to work with you because you represent their school, professors in Europe are not the same, of course there are exceptions. With that being said, how can you blame them? They see the American students traveling every weekend, often skipping class and prioritizing fun over studying, why would they work with you on absences and bombed tests? I love the professors I have this semester, and I am only pointing this out to point out the fact that studying abroad can be tough at times, and students must take accountability when it comes to their school work. Also, the
grading system is extremely different than that in America, as my first exam score I received reminded me of this, with points being subtracted from my grade for answering questions wrong.

Internship Troubles: As I mentioned earlier, I had to travel 11 hours back to Texas during the month, this was because my internship with JP Morgan Chase this upcoming semester, required me to complete fingerprinting before my start date. Not wanting to start my internship late, I was forced to fly back to Texas to complete this task (which ultimately took 5 minutes). On the bright side, I was fortunate enough to see my family and friends for the weekend, nobody knew I was coming back, so I was able to get some amazing reactions when I surprised them. I also had another internship mishap where I was scheduled to have a meet and greet with some of my colleagues for the summer, but the daylight savings time happening in the U.S. and not in Europe yet caused my calendar to be an hour off and ultimately led to me showing up extremely late to the meeting. While the company was understanding, showing up late is not how I want to represent myself, and goes to show the struggle of communication while abroad.

With all that being said, when I was back in Texas, I couldn’t wait to return to Madrid because of how great of an experience studying abroad has been for me.

Hasta Luego,
Michael