My Erasmus experience by Darío Catalán

In Slovakia I had a very special and enjoyable experience. Staying 3 months out of my comfort zone, without my family and friends and living in a country with a different language and cultural background helped me to watch the world with different eyes and know myself. My exchange family helped and were very nice to me from the beginning and helped me a lot to integrate into the school and the city. They took me to visit various places like Prague or Bratislava and we did many trips to the mountains to ski. I found Slovakia very interesting and beautiful and that was an experience I will never forget.

Daily Routine in Slovakia

I get up at 6:50, I get dressed, eat breakfast and go to school at 7:30 where I stay till 13:30.

Once I’m back at home, I have lunch with the family. If it’s Tuesday or Friday I go to play tennis from 5:30 to 7. When I’m back home I have some free time where I watch series and work a bit on my “welcome back exams’. at about 8:15 we have dinner and I go to rest to my room.

Thoughts about differences between Spanish and Slovak High School based on my two months experience in Slovakia

I found that there was more confidence in students, who have much more freedom between lessons: during the break in the break pause, they are allowed to use their phones or buy food and drinks. They also had a more relaxed timetable made of 45 minute lessons with 15 minutes breaks compared to 50 minute lessons and 5 minutes breaks of the Spanish timetables. The facilities of Slovak High School are more comfortable: modern building and cleaner warmer and brighter classrooms.

Spanish High Schools, however, are much more competitive. Marks and schools results matter more in Spanish schools system and students are more used to high-pressure exams because they write less amount of exams but with higher relevance and more quantity of content than in the Slovak system, where teachers don't have to care that much about teaching all the programmed content and they can skip or adapt some of it if time isn’t enough. Because of this, Spanish students have around the same amount of knowledge while studying one year less.