Systems of Higher Education in an international Comparison: Spain<title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../CSS/2col_leftNav.css" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="masthead"> <h1 id="siteName"> Systems of Higher Education in an international Comparison: Spain</h1> <h1 id="subTitle"> Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Universidad Carlos III, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia</h1> <div id="globalNav"> <a href="../educationalsystem/school.html">Educational System</a> | <a href="../universitylife/living.html"> University Life</a> | Work | <a href="../madrid/geography.html">Madrid</a> | <a href="../valencia/valencia.html">Valencia</a>| <a href="../authors.html">Authors</a></div> </div>  <div id="content"> <h2 id="pageName"> Internships / Scholarships </h2> <div id="breadCrumb"> <a href="#find">How to find an internship?</a> | <a href="#get">What you get: Salary, Knowledge</a></div> <div class="story"> <h3> How to find an internship?<a name="find"></a></h3> <p> As a student enrolled at a Spanish university the best way to find an internship is clearly C.O.I.E. Standing for ‘Centro de Orientación e Información de Empleo’, this acronym refers to an online portal with the sole purpose of negotiating jog offers (be it internships, final thesis or job entry) and contracts between students and companies, an online platform which all the big universities in Spain have. This is by far the easiest way of finding an internship that I’ve ever seen. Companies enter the details of job offers they have, students put their curriculum vitae in there as well as their interests, experience and study details. Finally each group can watch out for matches in the other group, i.e. companies can look for students matching their criteria and students can filter and browse the job offers for those they might be interested in. Having found such an offer, you just hit the ‘apply for’ button and the company will receive a corresponding message together with your digital profile. The rest is pretty much the same as in Germany; you wait for the company to contact you, there will be some kind of interview(s) with the company and you’ll finally get your contract (which is again generated automatically through C.O.I.E. and sent to your university as well).</p> <p> Nevertheless there are a few differences to the typical German application for an internship which I’d like to state. First of all, you should not apply to only a single offer as chances are high that there many applicants for only few jobs a company has to offer and as depending on your language skills (usually referring to Spanish and English) you might not be the company’s first choice. Besides, Spanish firms tend not to send out rejections. You’ll hear from them if they’re interested in your application, but in case they’re not, you’ll probably never hear from them at all. And last but not least, intermediate skills in Spanish as well as good English are quite helpful at a job interview Try to stand out with at least of those two!</p> <p> As a final note, I’d like to mention that directly applying at a certain company that you find interesting, asking for a ‘beca’ turns out not to be a the best approach and rarely gets you an answer. Maybe it’s because of the commodity and simplicity you as well as the company benefit when using C.O.I.E. and though that would be quite understandable, it’s clearly a difference to how it works in Germany. Other good ways to find internships are of course blackboards at the university (which is kind of the offline version of C.O.I.E.) or relatives, family or friends working at a company you’re interested in, though that’s hardly a possibility for foreign students.</p> <h3> What you get: Salary, Knowledge<a name="get"></a> </h3> <p> Contrary to regular jobs, ‘becas’ tend to be very well paid though among various companies this can still vary a lot. Two examples I can give are <a href="http://www.ifema.es"> IFEMA</a> (Madrid Trade fare) paying about 500 €/Month for a fulltime internship and <a href="http://www.aena.es">AENA</a> (Spanish Airport Operator and Air Traffic Control) with around 700 to 800 €/Month for a part-time (half-day) internship.</p> <p> What you get from an internship, besides money, just as in Germany, heavily depends on the company. This can be anything from being ‘exploited’ as a temporary employee doing simple stuff like copying papers, entering lists of number in a computer, etc. to a really good training and learning experience you may find at some of the companies. I suppose the general truth usually lies somewhere in between. As to my personal experience with AENA, I’m going present a few more details on that topic later on.</p> <div id="Div1"> <em>Author: <a href="http://www.juergentreml.de/">Jürgen Treml</a></em></div> </div> </div>  <div id="navBar"> <div id="sectionLinks"> <h3> Working in Spain</h3> <ul> <li>Internships & Scholarships</li> <li><a href="jobentry.html">Jobs & Job Entry</a></li> <li><a href="aena.html">Personal Experience @ AENA</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="relatedLinks"> <h3> Related Links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.coie.upm.es/" target="_blank">C.O.I.E. UPM</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.mtas.es/" target="_blank">Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.aena.es/" target="_blank">AENA</a></li> </ul> </div> </div>  <div id="siteInfo"> (C) 2008, Stefan Edbauer, Arno Scherhorn, <a href="http://www.juergentreml.de/">Jürgen Treml</a> </div> <br /> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3475788-1"); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); </script> </body> </html>