Berkley Center

I never expected Barcelona, Spain to be such an international city. Walking down its main streets, such as La Rambla or Passeig de Gràcia, I hear people speaking in Spanish, Catalan, English, German, Italian, and Portuguese. Of course, many of these people are tourists; however, I relish the feeling of being in a city that is bursting with a mix of diverse cultures. The local culture has certainly been influenced by the substantial influx of tourists—the city sees around 9.5 million tourists a year, making it one of the top three most-visited cities in the world—but also through the underlying dual identity of Barcelona, with its distinctive Catalonian and Spanish cultures.

Barcelona’s Mediterranean, and more specifically, Spanish culture, is apparent throughout the city. It is most awake at night, around 9:30 p.m. or 10 p.m., when the restaurants that brightly line the streets become filled with families and friends who spend hours at dinner in lively conversation. In general, I find there is a much greater emphasis on sitting down to enjoy one another’s company and less of a feeling of rush compared to the United States. Even at ESADE, my exchange university, halfway through our three-hour long classes, we stop for a twenty-minute coffee break during which we all head outdoors to catch up over coffee and croissants in the sunshine. 

Family time is also particularly important to Spaniards. On Sundays, you only find a few supermarkets and pharmacies open, since the day is meant to be spent with family. I found it surprising that most of my friends here from other European universities said their exchange at ESADE has been their first time living away from home, since they attend university in their hometown where they also live with their parents. Having gone to boarding school at age 14, this made me wonder whether in the United States we are too keen to leave home at an early age and have our own independence. It also made me wonder whether I am too “selfish” with my time. After a long week at school or work, I find myself often attending to my own to-do list rather than sharing that time with others. 

Fortunately for me, ESADE is equally as international as Barcelona. My best friends from school are from Germany, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and South Korea. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences between the various cultures of my friends. For the most part, I have found the intensity of the school system in Asia to be the most similar to that of the United States. My European friends seem to be much more relaxed about their studies, while the students from Asia bemoaned long test prep sessions and required after school activities much as we do. My friends were also surprised when I explained the pre-professional culture of academic clubs, recruiting events, and early internships that is prevalent in universities in the United States. Likewise, they told me that they perceived that Americans worked excessively and without any balance. Reflecting on this, I realize that the constant productivity we are taught from a young age—rushing from classes to club meetings to sports practices—can easily become excessive and overly stressful. 

The greatest lesson learned here, I find, is the importance of taking the time to slow down and smell the roses. Especially at Georgetown, we feel so much in a rush that we do not have time to sit down with our friends for dinner, let alone call our families before we start homework. Furthermore, I think it is admirable how important family is for the Spaniards, since I think that in America, family time has the tendency to lose importance as we grow older. Finally, while I think there are benefits to the strong pre-professional culture in the United States, my friends have shown me the value of pursuing experiences that don’t necessarily feed directly into my professional or academic goals and are simply done out of my own curiosity. After all, we will all enter the professional world eventually; there seems no need to rush into it, especially when at the cost of missing out on opportunities we will only get in college.