Finding the right housing during a semester abroad is an integral part of any study-abroad experience, as any returned senior will tell you, yet the options available often divide people into just as many sides. While certain universities' programs house all students together, not providing opportunities to decide on their own, programs like Middlebury College's in Madrid allow the choice between host families, "residencias" (dormitories with other students) and apartments.
Every student comes into study abroad with different expectations and hopes, some prioritizing independence, while others hold integration and acculturation above all else, and it falls on the program administration to cater to these preferences. Thankfully, the options that exist in the Middlebury Madrid program are able to cater to a wide variety of expectations. While that by no means guarantees an ideal experience, it does provide the opportunity to have a solid base for the studies, travels and socializing of students.
Since starting at one of Middlebury College's programs in Madrid in January, I've lived with a host family in Chamartín, a district in the north of the city, and have had a fantastic experience. The apartment has become more than a bed and a kitchen. It's also a new home where I can always retreat and feel welcome.
Unfortunately, this ideal situation by no means always happens, and in cases such as Middlebury's program in Paris, can hinder itself by not allowing students options like apartments. The perfect housing is by no means the same for each student. The different needs and personal backgrounds of each individual influences their decision. This diversity makes a wide variety of choices all the more important, and their omission the more unacceptable.
My experience in Chamartín has been spectacular, but is dependent on the options offered by the program. I chose to live in a room with two snakes and a bearded dragon, chose to have dinners with the family so I could feel more at home and have complete privacy in a room I can call my own. I have had a unique and wonderful semester so far, and has been so because I can make it my own, and mold it to my own tastes.
While talking to other students studying abroad in the city, many enjoying their time also talk about maintaining their own food schedule while also integrating with their family in other ways, or feeling independent in a foreign city, choosing how to spend their time in a metropolis laden with options. Whether I agree or disagree with the decisions made by other international students, they nonetheless have been able to make their own experience and benefit from it, an integral part of growing and maturing.
Not everyone will be able to have the same experience I have had. Not everyone will be able to play paintball with their host family or be subject to a tyrannical residencia grading your cleanliness, but the option to choose between the two, and to make study abroad your own, is incredibly important. The intercultural development that these programs create, while crucial in a globalized world, still needs to come in tandem with an appreciation for individual failure and success. Study abroad in college often offers a unique experience to learn about oneself in an unfamiliar, foreign context, and a variety of choices and options are a necessity, to both cater to individuals and to help them grow further.
