Berkley Center

When I decided to be an Economics major my freshmen year, I never could have guessed how influential the decision would be on my study abroad experience. First of all, it’s the reason I was accepted to participate in Georgetown’s fall study abroad program in Madrid.

Although I am a member of Georgetown College, the program is tailored for students in the McDonough School of Business, primarily offering classes in finance, marketing, management, and, thankfully, economics. In addition to three other classes, I find myself in "International Economic Theory" and "The Economy of the European Union" four times each week—all taught in Spanish, of course. Although I obviously learn a lot from my professors in the classroom everyday, the most valuable insights I gain come from the supplementary knowledge I glean from personal observations, and interactions with my Spanish host family and Spanish peers. In both of my economics classes, my professors compare Spain’s economy to those of other countries, using facts and figures as support. I see a lot of comparisons between Spain and the United States at my university, and throughout Madrid.

Similar to the situation in the United States, vast unemployment spreads throughout society. According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics findings from June 2013, however, the United States unemployment rate was 7.6 percent while Spain’s was a staggering 26.3 percent.

I live with a traditional host family, consisting of a mother, father, and two sons, who are respectively 18-years-old and 12-years-old. My host mother works as a flight attendant, making a few trips to the Americas each month. My host father works as a stay-at-home dad, cooking meals, completing handiwork, and chauffeuring his sons. Although they appear to be a pretty liberal family, I am still unsure whether he chooses not to have a job or whether the widespread unemployment has left him without one.

After a conversation with my host mother, I am certain that my 18-year-old host brother, a freshman at a different university in Madrid, is left unvoluntarily unemployed. One morning, as I ate cereal and my host mother sipped a cup of coffee, she asked about my employment circumstance at Georgetown. I explained that I work at a coffee shop, the Midnight Mug, and also had an internship during the summer and spring. She explained that her oldest son wants to work, but internships are not as common in Spain and student jobs prove difficult to secure, due to both unemployment and scheduling issues.

In my sociology class, my Spanish peers echoed a similar sentiment regarding unemployment among youths. On the first day, the professor randomly assigned all of the students into groups, and I found myself as the only American in a group with four Spaniards. He asked each group to discuss what they believe is wrong with society, economically and socially, from their unique perspective. All of my group members immediately stared at me, extremely interested in my American perspective, while I tried the discuss income gap, student loans, and unemployment in the United States. Among the societal problems for the young Spaniards, they discussed the fear and difficulty of finding jobs after graduation, an anxiety also felt by many Georgetown seniors. Since we attend Universidad Pontifica de Comillas, a prestigious private university in a country where public universities are respectable and low-cost, they explained that they feel less distress than students at other schools probably experience.

Both the United States and Spain are both clearly in the midst of economic crises, a fact I have discussed in classrooms and seen throughout society in both countries, with unemployment offering a way to both measure and observe the impact of economic problems on a country’s citizens. While data shows that Spain’s economic problems are much more severe than the United States’ problems, reality tells the same tale: the Spaniards and Americans seem to face very similar financial woes, but with Spaniards experiencing them to a greater degree.