Details

• Spain
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• SoSe 2026
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months

1. Preparation

I chose the destination for my exchange based on the country, as I ideally wanted to be in an European City near the beach. As I already spoke a little bit of Spanish, Spain was an obvious choice. I recommend informing yourself early on about the possibilities of doing an exchange semester, in order to not miss any deadlines and work on having a good grade point average, as it increases the chances of getting into one of your top choices. Regarding the second part of the allocation process, the interview, mine consisted of mostly questions similar to the ones we had to submit on the written document. Be sure to prepare a little bit in advance to the typical questions, as you would do in any job interview. Planning your exchange semester early on also helps with the choice of courses. Which courses can you easily do during the exchange and therefore "safe up" for that semester (e.g. the electives)? Do you need to do certain language courses?

2. Accommodation

I started looking for an accommodation in october (for my exchange beginning in january) and fortunately found a room in a shared flat within a week through the website Housinganywhere. The whole renting process was effortless, rent itself in Barcelona is not very cheap, the average seems to be around 600-700 euros per month. I shared my flat with four other exchange students from different countries and was very happy with the apartment and my flatmates. The apartment was located in the district of Eixample, which is a nice and central living area and very popular among exchange students. As the ESADE campus is located outside of Barcelona, in Sant Cugat, I recommend checking the public transport connection to the university before deciding on an accommodation. I don't recommend taking an accommodation in Sant Cugat, as the large majority of exchange students will be living in Barcelona, the commute of approximately an hour to university being preferable than having to commute to Barcelona for freetime activities. Other nice neighborhoods to live in, apart from Eixample, are Gràcia, Sant Antoni and Poble-sec.

3. Academic life at host university

Generally, I was quite happy with my courses during my exchange semester. Most courses had between 10 and 30 students participating, attendance was always obligatory (usually 80% attendance). Different than at WU Vienna, the courses were often graded based on assignments, essays, presentations and participation in class, rather than a big exam at the end of the course. Therefore the workload was more continuous rather than piled up at the end of the term. Group projects were very common. As ESADE has, similarly to WU's "Winter- und Sommeruni", a period of intensive and one of extensive courses, I recommend spreading the courses throughout the term, already completing e.g. two courses during the intensive period. Courses I especially liked where "Negotiation", "Digital Business in the Era of Big Data and AI", and "Re-Imagining Capitalism" (although the last one had a very high workload). I have also heard positive things about all spanish and catalan culture related courses offered. As the courses exchange students can choose from are the electives of regular ESADE students, the majority of students in the courses are other exchange students.

5. Every day life in the host country

Barcelona is really an amazing city to live in, full of life, activity and sunny days. There are endless bars, restaurants and places to visit, the nightlife being also excellent, offering the possibility to go out every day of the week if desired. There seems to always be an event, festival or holiday celebration to experience. Also culturally Barcelona has a lot to offer, museums offering free entry one day per week, or at the very least one day per month. Surely in Barcelona you will never run out of things to do. The public transport in the city is very good, the very affordable T-Jove transportation card offering the possibilty to travel even outside of Barcelona, exploring cities, towns and beaches in the surroundings, up to two hours away from Barcelona. Additionally, apart from pickpockets, Barcelona also seemed like a very safe city to me, even for a woman walking home at night.

6. Testimonial

This exchange has been an amazing experience for me, as for the first time I was able to experience living in a city apart from my home in Vienna, Barcelona being so vibrant and lively with endless things to do. I have met wonderful people through my roommates and also other exchange students at ESADE who I have traveled with, shared tapas with and spend sunny afternoons at beaches surrounding Barcelona. And while I enjoyed the courses at ESADE, what stays with me is my growth and memories outside of the universiy classrooms.