As you can tell from the “halleluiah” title of this post, I’m pretty happy. Why? The answer’s simple, really. You see, my university degree from the USA has recently been officially recognized by the Spanish Ministry of Education. In case you didn’t know, the process of getting a university degree recognized here in Spain is known as homologación (hence the title: “I’m homologated”) and it’s both a very lengthy and a very time-consuming ordeal.
Let me give you the rundown on the whole “homologation process” (does anybody know if “homologation” is really a word in English??). To have your degree “homologated” (another possibly made up word in English), the ministry you need to talk to is the Ministry of Education; which, incidentally, has changed its name about three times in the past year. But this post isn’t about the various name-changes that the Ministry of Education has undergone recently, it’s about degree recognition — so let’s get back on track. You can find information about the recognition of foreign studies on the Ministry of Education’s website.
Basically, there are two types of university degree recognitions in Spain. The first type is what they call Homologación a un Grado Académico Español. This first type gives you a piece of paper saying that your degree is similar in difficulty and duration to a Spanish Diplomado or Licenciado degree. Thus, it does what its name suggests: it aligns your degree to a specific academic grade or level but it doesn’t align your degree to a specific academic major. The second type aligns your degree perfectly to a Spanish degree from the Official Spanish Catalog of Degrees. With this type of homologation, not only do you have your level of studies recognized but also your major. In both cases you have to submit legalized copies of your university degrees and transcripts, along with sworn translations. Continue reading this post…
Last month I picked up my new foreigner residency card at the police station so that I could be “legal” for another year in Spain. This was the first time I have actually had to renew my card from within Spain and I must say that the process, while extremely interesting to me as a foreigner (I’d never seen anything quite like it in my life), was not exactly what I would consider “seamless.”
To give you an idea of what I had to do to get my residency card renewed here in Spain, I’m going to break the process down into steps. Continue reading this post…
One good resource that all foreigners living in Spain should know about is the Spanish Ministerio de Trabajo e Inmigración’s website. The website actually has a special “foreigner’s section” located at http://extranjeros.mtas.es/ which provides a wealth of information about the documents required for getting work permits for Spain, residency permits for Spain, NIE numbers, etc. Continue reading this post…
I decided to try my luck with the whole “video blogging” thing and so I made this video to let everyone know that my visa has “officially” been granted and now I’m one step closer to going to Spain in September. It’s probably not the best video on the internet… but hey, it’s my first attempt. Continue reading this post…
The next step in preparing for the scholarship that I have been awarded is to apply for a Student Visa to go to Spain. I have studied abroad in Spain before so this is actually the second time that I have had to apply for a Student Visa. I’d like to outline the general process for applying for a visa to study abroad in Spain in this post. Please remember that this information is just a guide which was written in June of 2008 – always check with your local consulate for updated information before applying for a visa.
Find a Spanish Consulate in the USA:
In most cases, you must apply for a visa in person at the appropriate Spanish Consulate. There are several Consulate Generals of Spain throughout the USA. Each consulate has a different jurisdiction and it is your responsibility to get to the one that serves your state. You can use this webpage (in Spanish) to look up the consulate in your jurisdiction. Continue reading this post…
Well, as my loyal readers know, I am currently working on an application for a scholarship which would allow me to go to Spain and teach English for one year. The application process is going nicely and I am collecting all of the supporting documents that I need, except for one little hiccup: The Apostille of The Hague. Continue reading this post…
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