AIFS AbroadReviews of aifsabroad.com

The people I met and the AIFS staff were super helpful in making this experience unforgettable. I was able to create some long lasting bonds with my peers and employers and I cannot wait to visit all the new people in my life!

The staff, communication and field trips

apartment with no storage space and a mini fridge for 5 girls. cleaning lady didn’t clean. i could’ve found a place for myself by myself and it would’ve been cheaper. too much bureaucracy. classrooms had so much echo. no schedule communication until the week of.

My experience with this trip was pretty positive! The professors, namely Professor Hilman, were very engaging and I felt like I actually learned quite a few things about Italy. As far as apartments go, we had a great location but our landlord was terrible at communication and would never get back to us about broken utilities in the apartment. For that reason it became a frustrating trip, but overall the good outweighed the bad.

Every thing was fantastic with AIFS. We were a bit confuzed when we had a cocktail party, as all students and faculty were told it was a welcome dinner. Mixing up students from other programs was a bit confusing. I did like the dinner with the director, was very personal and great ice breaker. The classrooms at U of W are horrible to teach in, they need some sort of sound mitigation, to to much echo. Videos and films are impossible to watch. The AIFS classrooms need also blackout curtains. Housing concerns were numerous for students,eg black mold complaint etc. Trips were well organized and guides were helpful to get into venues. Headphones were always an issue....all students should be given their own for lenght of program. Some of the Italian guides were very hard to understand for the American students. The tours should always be interactive, not just lectures, and should be limited to 1 hour max....with a period of time for exploration on their own, prior to re-grouping. Transportation was excellent, busses, subway, trains etc. All staff were excellent.

AIFS is the best! This is my third study abroad program with them and they consistently make every aspect of the experience organized and memorable!

The people I met were the reason for my rating. Aifs could’ve done a better job with apartments all around. We could’ve all been closer together at the least instead of being scattered, it’d be nicer if everyone was closer to the study center too. My apartment alone was significantly in worse condition than the others. I saw many apartments and all of them I would’ve rather lived in. Coordinators need to see the apartments for themselves in person before students arrive.

One of the struggles that I had entering this program is that I was under the impression for a long time that it was going to involve enrollment in a real Spanish University. Only upon attending the orientation pre-departure did I realize that it takes our college professors and bring them to teach us abroad. This was a bit of a disappointment that I did not feel was clarified from the start. The issue with this set up of studying abroad is it forced me to stay mostly confined within my American bubble of companions, where we all had the same workload, group projects, excursions making it hard to learn how or when to incorporate ourselves into the culture. Sure, I made some Spanish friends and talked to strangers, but those moments were short-lived because at the end of the day I had to resort back to my peers who I was spending most of the day around in class and on trips, naturally. I feel the program could have provided better opportunities to get to know locals our age on a meaningful level, and they could benefit from us as well. Specifically, if we collaborated with them on something educational or social or intellectual. It would be nice to know that I have real, solid connection with someone from a different country after this semester abroad, but I can’t say that I do. On the other hand, I had good experiences with the pre-paid excursions and the trips included on the program. They were extensive and provided us with great guides and authentic experiences.