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Bedrijfseconomie
Fall Academic
2016-2017
University of Navarra
Spain
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE CITY AND UNIVERSITY
The University of Navarra is situated in Pamplona, you might know Pamplona because of the festival
San Fermin, the running of the bulls. Pamplona is a small city, smaller then Tilburg. You will do
everything walking (it is really not so bad), going by bus or bicycle is actually not necessary.
Mostly every students live in the southern part of Pamplona in the neighbourhood Iturrama and
around southern part of PIO XII (the long street), walking from east to west in Iturrama takes about
10 minutes so everyone lives really close by which is very nice. Under the neighbourhood Iturrama
sits the university. In the middle of the city a nice citadel is situated which you will walk through
when you walk to the old town in the north. A walk from Iturrama to old town is around 15/20
minutes.
Pamplona is a fairly quite city and traditional in that they hold siestas and shops and supermarkets
aren’t open on Sundays. You will mostly see flats around Pamplona and the old city centre is really
pretty. The campus is pretty big but you will mostly stay around the economics building. Every
building on campus has its own cafeteria and study places so it’s a bit different than what we are
used to in Tilburg. The campus outside as well as inside has a modern look and an easy layout.
*road to the university
* the economics building
at the campus
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Tilburg University and UNAV will provide you with enough pre-arrival information. So you don’t have
to worry about anything. Just follow the instructions and you are fine. Since we are in Spain you
don’t need a visa or anything so that saves you a lot of work.
When you are about to depart to Pamplona you are most likely flying to Zaragoza or Bilbao and take
a bus or train from there to Pamplona because flying to Pamplona directly is expensive. Public
transport is pretty well organised so you don’t have to worry.
I came to Pamplona before the welcoming days to explore the city and to do some meetups with
other international students. I went to a bar, grabbed a beer with all the people joining and let things
roll on from there. So I already knew people before the welcoming days started which was pretty
nice. To be fair, the welcoming days and activities organised by the university were horrendous
compared to ours in Tilburg. The UNAV is pretty religious and conservative so don’t expect a
beercantus. In short what you will be doing is getting to know the university/city (through a tour),
the mentors and you will receive the necessary information, think of login codes, your schedule etc.
This all in the span of 3 days. But not to worry the activities are during the day and finish early
afternoon, so that leaves the night to grab a few drinks at a bar/mentor’s apartment to relax, to get
the edge off and get to know people.
This brings me to housing, which for me was quite an adventure. The UNAV site provides you with
enough links to companies which provide housing. They also provide links to residences on campus
or off campus but don’t go there!! Why, you might think. Well, because they have strict rules and
have curfews just search for apartments in Iturrama. I came to Pamplona without an apartment
because the ones I wanted were already taken. So I decided to search for one during my stay and I
didn’t find one until the last day of the welcoming days. It was a bit of a hassle because the students
housing companies didn’t really have good apartments left but while searching with my mentor, we
came across one and sorted it all out. I did not have any problems with the landlord and got my bail
back without any problems.
With the Erasmus grant you receive you should be able to finance your stay in Pamplona pretty well.
The cost for housing is around 250/300 depending on the apartment. So the same as in Tilburg. As
for food and drinks it mostly is a bit cheaper as in Tilburg but it varies on some products.
I paid for my apartment around 300 euro and for food around 200 (both per month.) And spending
money on activities/parties is for your own to decide.
The welcoming days started on the 3rd of September, my semester started on the 5th and ended on
the 16th of December. I didn’t have a week’s break but Spain and in the province Navarra there are a
lot of holidays so you could have some days off during the week.
The international office is like our exchange office, really helpful and well organised so if you have
any questions they are more than happy to help out. The international office will probably ask you to
join their international fair, which I did and it was pretty funny to be part of it because of all the
question you get about The Netherlands and your university.
The university offers some social activities but not all of them are worth joining but still nice that they
organise activities. For example Navarra has a lot of vineyards, it is a wine region and the university
organised a wine tasting which was a really nice activity to go to. But a friend of mine and I organised
our own trip which I will tell more about later on.
* At the winery during the
tour of the vineyard
culture wise you will definitely get a bit of a wakeup because for example they hold siestas from 1400
to 1600/1630, so shops will close down and on Sundays nothing is open, only restaurants and no
supermarkets are open (except for a small Carrefour express.) Also the eating habits are very
different, they eat a heavy warm lunch around 2 in the afternoon and eat dinner around 10 in the
evening. But you will get used to this pretty quickly. For the rest it is not really that different. You
might have some problems with the language barrier if your Spanish is not good because people in
Pamplona don’t really speak a lot of English. But they are really helpful and understanding if you try
to speak in Spanish. I am A2 level in Spanish and I was fairly able to get by with my Spanish as already
stated Spaniards are really helpful so don’t be afraid to talk in Spanish.
Personal experience and development
The University of Navarra in the small city of Pamplona wasn’t certainly my first choice, in fact it was
my 6th. When I got the news that I would be headed for Pamplona I didn’t expect I would have such
an astonishing experience and time there. I had such an amazing exchange and loved every minute of
it.
I set out on my journey to Pamplona on my own on the 28th of august, got on the plane to Zaragoza
and took the train to Pamplona. When I arrived there weren’t a lot of people yet so I did a bit of
exploring with people I met in the hostel I stayed in. The first meetup was on the 30th at a bar and
thing started there. The next day I organised a meetup at different bar and I joined another one the
next day and like that we had meetups every day till the welcoming days. One thing you have to do is
join every activity or meetup because this is a perfect way to meet people and make friends even
during and at the end of your exchange! I still remember that is was sitting on my own at a
restaurant having lunch and 3 guys walked out, not looking Spanish one bit and I just started a
conversation and they turned out to be 3 of my best mates. Don’t be afraid to talk and open up to
people because everyone is in the same boat.
One of the best parts of my exchange was actually at the beginning. In the first weeks one of the
friends I met outside the restaurant, a New Zealander. Him and I organised a surfing trip to San
Sebastian for 40 people without any help etc. not even from the university. We organised a bus to
take us to San Sebastian, we booked hostels/Airbnbs, surfing lessons and tickets for a party in the
evening. We posted in the Facebook group that we would organise this and we instantly got
bombarded with reactions from people who wanted to join.
We had to cap the event to a maximum of 40 people. Sounds like a hell of a lot of work doesn’t it? It
was but more than worth it in the end. As I said everyone is in the same boat and wants to make
friends so what better way than this, you instantly get to know a whole lot of people. Someone had
to take the initiative right? To recollect our time with friends at the end of the exchange everyone
was so thankful that my friend and I organised it.
* Pintxos bar in San
Sebastian
* View from our Airbnb in
San sebastian
One of the nice things about Pamplona is that every Thursday in Pamplona everyone goes to old
town at 8pm to get pintxos (bigger version of tapas.) You order a pintxo and a glass of wine or beer
with it and you go bar hopping till 11pm and after that you go out. Literally the whole bar is filled
with pintxos. For an indication on how it looks the bars are comparable with the bar in the picture in
San Sebastian
I had a fairly basic routine which worked pretty well. I went to university in the morning or begin
noon and study till begin evening so I had all my work done beforehand. That left me free during the
evening and since I had no lessons on Friday left me free to travel as well. I went to Porto and Lisbon
in Portugal and went to Granada, Bilbao, Madrid and a few other places. So having a good working
routine and finishing work beforehand leaves you with a bunch of free time to go out, travel etc.
* Viewpoint in
Porto during my
travels
* In Generalife at
the Alhambra in
Granada
My exchange was over in a flash, really it was such an amazing experience! The end is never fun,
personally I hate to say goodbye that’s why I never say it because of this experience I have friends
now all over the world which makes for good places to visit.
I was never homesick I didn’t have a shock of some sort when I arrived and lived in Pamplona. The
shock came when I was picked up at Schiphol and drove into my hometown. It was so strange to be
back, it felt so weird, actually, it still sort of does. It is so strange to see not see your friends and city
you lived in anymore even though it was just for four months.
I developed and improved a whole lot on social, cultural and educational level. You become more
open, open minded and even more social. Cultural awareness, ability to work in teams,
independence it all increases. This will be great if you want to work internationally because you
worked with people from different cultures, you get know more about other cultures so you know
the do’s and don’ts in certain countries. I became a bit more fluent in English because I barely talked
Dutch anymore.
ACADEMIC INFORMATION
Lectures are mandatory at UNAV which can sometimes be a bit of a bummer but it is not as bad as it
seems. You will have to participate because a percentage of your final grade depends on class
participation. UNAV offers courses in Spanish and English and offers Spanish language courses as
well. The level of English of some professors might be a bit average but you will be able to follow
everything. You will have homework every week, think of case studies, making a summary or some
exercises, which also count for your final grade.
The courses I took were:
- Macroeconomics
- Behaviour Decision Making
- Quality Management
- Investments in Financial Markets
- International Trade
I can recommend every course except Macroeconomics, they use different notations then used at
Tilburg which is confusing. It was too bad they didn’t offer more good accounting or finance courses.
Otherwise I would not have picked Macroeconomics. As for the rest they were all nice and
interesting courses to follow. UNAV offers a course in every subject. The lecture will be held in a
small classroom, the biggest is for max 80 to 100 I think but most classes are with around 25
students. So it has a more personal setting with a lot of interaction. Facilities that the university
offers are of a good quality, the libraries during the exam period are packed but that is at every
university.
Would I recommend The University of Navarra? Yes for sure! It offers good courses, has good
teachers with a great resume and the university is highly regarded internationally. Also Pamplona
with its environment and atmosphere are great! It is really nice that every place is really close,
meeting up is no hassle at all.
A few tips, of course learn Spanish it will help you out a lot and Spaniards like it when you are able to
speak Spanish. Take the initiative to organise an activity big or small to get to know students, go to
every activity even though sometimes you are not really up for it. Don’t stress or prepare for
exchange too much it will be great anyway!