In 2022, towards the end of the pandemic, my life needed to change. While I would love to pretend that I inscribed to the masters degree in the noble pursuit of knowledge, the true reason was due to boredom in my freelance fullstack job, feeling stuck and somewhat lonely.
Having moved from Paris to Granada just two year before, my girlfriend and I had found out that the ideal size of a city to live in lay somewhere between that. Given that the city had nice beaches1 and a great university, Barcelona was the choice we landed on.
The somewhat costly move to another city coincided with my freelance project drying up, so in order not to starve, I joined a salaried position at Adevinta at the same time. Luckily, I was able to work out a deal to work part-time with them for the duration of my master's.
The master's I finally landed on was the Master of Innovation and Research with the specialization advanced computing (what a mouth full). This degree, in line with its name, is mostly focused on academics. Subjects like randomized algorithms, advanced data structures, social and complex networks were not just focused on how these algorithms work, but also on what properties can be proven about them. Unlike the Bachelor's degree I did in Munich, a large portion of the grades, often more than 50%, was based on take-home projects, presentations, and “papers” you handed in. So ironically, the degree in theoretical computer science felt quite practical.
Culture-wise, the professors at the university were also very different than what I was used to in Germany. The professors personally put a lot of effort into helping their students. Partially, this may be due to the difference between a bachelor's and a master's. But the amount of effort that some of the professors put into helping the students out was more than I was used to. My thesis advisor, Alicia Ageno, for instance, had a meeting with me about every two weeks and sent me relevant papers and advice on a subject that was not her current research topic anymore.
But also other professors signed some papers to allow me to pass some presentations I did at local meetups as university credits, helping me in the monumental fight against bureaucracy.
Doing my Master's degree was one of the most stressful phases of my life. And that was despite doing only 3 instead of 5 courses per semester and working only 20 hours per week. Because it was presential, I would go to university 3 to 4 times a week and from there go to the office. All of this commuting was done by bicycle (luckily, the office had a shower).
Since the course work had a lot of take home exercises, many of which taking a lot of time, the mornings on which I didn’t go to class and Saturdays were usually booked for completing these.
As I found out later, it is also quite common to do full-time work and full-time or part time studies here in Spain. I have nothing but respect for students who survive that.
Overall, the degree took 2.5 years. I could accredit my work as 12 out of 120 ECTS due to it being related to computers. Apart from that, I managed to find a Master’s thesis at my work place, which meant that the last semester I was just working on the project during working hours, which was an incredibly good deal.
The classes were prepared and held by the professors themselves. This led to course quality being all over the place. Some of the classes were incredibly interesting, while others were sometimes boring, sometimes truly abysmal. Personally, I enjoyed all of the classes except for maybe two. Some of my co-students would maybe not give such a generous rating.
Socializing was incredibly easy. In the first semester, we set up a study group, which, even after the end of our studies, continues as an alcohol appreciation group. I personally focused on socializing with Spanish students since most of the international students were only there for an exchange semester as part of the ERASMUS program. The main focus of those students was usually the party life instead of getting the degree done. But I also kept in contact with two of the international students.
Most socializing took place in the university bar. In Germany, while we like beer, we do have a time limit for drinking it (after 4)2. In Spain, my co-students would happily order either coffee or beer at 11 in the morning between breaks. Though usually not more than one.
Other than that, one part of the culture I really enjoy is the food culture. The first time I went for lunch with my then new friends, I was almost jitterish when we still didn't leave the restaurant after 2-3 hours of staying and just talking. Later, I got used to it and now I really enjoy those slow afternoons.
Studying in Europe for Europeans is generally not that expensive. Interestingly, the cost of studying in Spain (around 800 Euros per semester) was much higher than the cost in Munich (around 250 Euros per semester in 2013).
For me, it was. But I can’t recommend this for everyone. I really enjoyed the theoretical subjects and made some great friends along the way. I was definitely not bored. On the other hand, I don’t know if it advanced my career. It might make a difference in case I apply for other jobs, but for the corporate job I’m in right now, it has no impact on promotions. Also, at times, I felt tremendous amounts of pressure. Part of it is me not dealing well with it, but the workload of doing multiple projects at the same time while working took away many weekends and time and energy I would have rather spent with my girlfriend.
Nonetheless, I would wholeheartedly recommend it if someone wanted to do it out of interest in the subjects.
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