From Boulder to Madrid: What Study Abroad Taught Me About Life + Marketing

By: Hannah Boday

As I begin this blog post, I wanted to start off by introducing myself a little bit. My name is Hannah Boday and I am a current junior at the University of Colorado Boulder studying Business Marketing. I am graduating in three years, so this is my last semester, in which I am spending my time studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. Throughout these past few years (especially this last semester abroad), I have learned so much about business, myself, and living in a different country and I am excited to dive deeper into all of that today! 

With this being my last semester, I have been working hard to not only graduate with the knowledge and connections needed to start the next chapter of my life, but also trying to enjoy the experience that comes along with being abroad. I have found ways to intertwine marketing and business into my classes that I am taking here in Madrid and I have also found ways to learn more about the culture and the way that Spain is run as a whole. As someone with a deep passion for traveling, I love being able to connect it to other aspects of my life. For example, I find myself connecting marketing tactics here in Madrid with marketing tactics in the United States. This stemmed from the minute that I stepped on the Metro, Line 10 right after the stop at Santiago Bernabeu, where they have advertising inside the actual tunnels that flash by the windows as the metro zooms by. Simple things like this I have put a focus on noticing, because it is something that I find interesting as well as helpful for my future plans. While I do find myself actively putting my business skills and knowledge to the test, I have also left plenty of room to get to know the culture of Spain. I grew up going on trips abroad with my family and I did solo traveling for a month on my own back in 2023, but living abroad is something that I had yet to experience until now. When it comes to traveling, you get a sense of both the culture and expectations, but when living in a different country, you have to learn and adapt to that lifestyle. 

Instead of boring you all with paragraphs of these, here's a list of the things that I have noticed:

1. Time → In the United States, people are often in a hurry and always punctual/early, whereas in Madrid, you don’t find people rushing often, and being late is not seen as a form of disrespect, it is a lot more normalized. Along with this, getting from place to place takes way longer, because it is usually public transportation or walking in Madrid.
2. Personal Space / Personal Awareness → There is a lot less personal space and awareness in Madrid in comparison to the United States. People don’t mind standing close, people will sit directly next to you on public transportation or in public places, people will stand over you in the metro if you're seated, and they don’t see any awkwardness with direct staring. One thing Madrid does take very seriously in terms of personal awareness is where you stand on the escalators. If you are walking up the escalator, walk on the left and if you are riding the escalator, stand on the right.
3. Food/Eating Out → In Madrid, eating is considered a process, where it is common to sit down to eat food. You rarely see someone eating their food on the go, whereas in the States, that is normalized and commonly seen. Along with that, eating out is taken more casually when it comes to customer service. There are often many different waiters helping you, you have to ask for the check, water costs money, there is no tipping, and it isn’t as common for them to check up on how you are doing. In the States, customer service is a huge deal, where you are expected to tip and the service should be aimed directly at the customer feeling heard and not having to do any work.
4. Work Life Balance → There is a better work life balance in Madrid, where people take time aways from work and do the things that they want to do. The United States is more “live to work” whereas Spain is more “work to live.” This means that they are working so they are able to live whereas the US is focused on money and living to work.
5. Public Displays of Affection → In Madrid, couples see no problem in showing high amounts of physical affection, whereas in the States, you would be heavily judged and seen as “weird” or “disgusting.”
6. Bathrooms → This is a random bonus one but there are very few public bathrooms in Spain, and oftentimes you have to pay to use them.

While there are plenty more differences to take into account when adapting to living life in Madrid when coming from the States, I wanted to turn the page and talk more about the experiences that I have had the opportunity to do while studying abroad. 

As I’ve previously mentioned, I love to travel, so coming abroad was something that I had set for myself since before I even started college. I saved up and I was able to experience many places that I’ve had a goal to see in my lifetime. Before I started my program, I came out to Spain to spend some time with my family for New Years. We settled in Marbella, Spain for a little over a week, visiting Malaga, Gibraltar, and Ronda during that time. Afterwards, my family and I traveled up to Madrid, where they dropped me off to start my program. During this time, I met many people who I started to spend more time with, exploring both in the city, and places right outside of the city. We went hiking in Cercedilla and took day trips to Segovia and Avila. Classes started and that’s when the big traveling swang in at full force. We first traveled to Rome, Italy where we sightsaw, ate amazing food, and continued to get to know each other better. Then, we traveled to Marrakech, Morocco, where we explored the Souks, rode camels, ATV’d, slept in the desert, and experienced authentic Moroccan cuisine/celebrations. We had a quick turnaround from this trip, where we then traveled to Prague, Czech Republic and Budapest, Hungary. We did a lot of sightseeing for both of these places and spent time trying food, exploring the cities, and meeting new people. With all of this traveling, I decided to start to slow down, and went on a CIEE sponsored trip to Cuencas. This trip we got to explore the historic sites and immerse ourselves with locals in a language exchange, where I met many amazing people from all over the world. Toledo was the last spot I went to, taking the bus for free and exploring the city for an entire day. I attached pictures to this blog for each place, so you can all see pictures from the beautiful places I got to experience as well as the amazing people I met along the way. 

As I am writing this, I only have 17 days left until I head back to the United States. The past 3 months have flown by, with some many amazing adventures as well as some difficult challenges that have come along with it. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I wasn’t able to have the opportunity to study abroad and looking back at every moment, I am so beyond grateful to have had the ability to live the dream I have been looking forward to for so long. While I fully intend to continue to travel and immerse myself in different cultures, it is going to be difficult to look back at this time and not dwell on the moments that I’ve had. This is the only time in my entire life that I will get to move to a country I’ve never been to, create friendships with people whose paths would have never crossed mine back in the US, travel from country to country, study in classes with amazing teachers living here in Madrid, and be able to experience the Spanish way of life. I am beyond grateful to my family and friends for supporting me throughout this journey and I want to give a huge thank you to CIEE and The University of Colorado Boulder for giving students the opportunity to study abroad.

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