As we look ahead to 2023, we chatted with one of our Gap Year students to see what it was like being a 2022 Euroace student.

1. What did your Gap Year program include?

It included a volunteer program, Spanish classes, a host family stay, as well as an airport pick up where the Euroace driver met me at the airport to take me to my host family accommodation. Initially I didn’t do Spanish classes, but I decided to do these and after three months, I wanted to do more! I’ve done 6 months in total of classes now.

2. How’s the volunteer experience going?

My first volunteer placement was with young children, but they were too little for me so I requested to change. Now I’m with another placement working with older kids, I help them with homework, and practice English and Spanish with them. I’ve got a really good connection with the people I work with, I don’t think of them as my bosses, in fact we’re going to Portugal together soon!

3. Can you tell us about what it’s like being in a host family?

I’m living with a host mother and her son, and there’s also another Euroace student. I’m genuinely the luckiest person ever, when I hear about other students and their host families, I have the freedom to do whatever I want, which is great because when you’re here you have to see the world, go out, meet other people. I have a really great relationship with my host mother, and she cooks such great food, she’s such a great woman. I speak Spanish with her, and there’s a new girl who’s Columbian so we speak Spanish together too. It makes it so much easier, now if I have questions I can ask them, and also practice on my own, and we can dive into more subjects. With friends, it depends – a lot speak English, because everyone is from somewhere else. Only a few of my close friends are from Latin America, so we speak Spanish or a mix.

4. What’s your daily routine like?

I do Spanish classes three times a week for two hours each, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Most of the time if I have class I’ll go from 11am – 1pm, then I go home to eat lunch, and every day I have my volunteering program from 4.30pm – 7.30pm. During the day if I don’t have class I have time to meet with friends and keep myself busy. In my free time I go around Valencia, visit new towns, go to the beach, or go and look for new restaurants and places to eat and drink coffee. I thought when I came here I would spend my money on clothes but it’s the same brands as in my country so I just spend money on food! Google Maps is amazing, I have so many saved places. And Valencia is very cheap, there’s a good variety of food. 30 minutes here walking doesn’t feel like 30 minutes in other places, it’s so easy to get around here. I use the bus and metro because the public transport is so good here.

5. Would you recommend a Gap Year program to other students?

1000% I would recommend it! This was the craziest (in good way) thing I’ve done, I’ve never felt better meeting all these people, and now I can say I have friends genuinely on every continent. Valencia is really amazing, the people, the whole vibe. I’m going to cry when I have to go back home. I told my family I don’t have to go back home, they can come here instead! I’m thinking now to go to Madrid to do an Erasmus+ program, I kind of want to stay in Spain and do something else, and I really liked Madrid when I visited so I’d like to study there. I have options, so now I just need to choose!

We hope this gives a bit more insight into what a Gap Year with Euroace looks like! If you’d like more information, check out our website here, and you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram to see what’s going on day-to-day!