IES Abroad Vienna Summer - Psychology

I had an amazing time abroad in Vienna! The IES staff are so resourceful, and the people I met have been incredible. The professors are great, and there were so many opportunities for different activities outside the classroom in our free time.

Our daughter applied for admittance to IES's Vienna Psychology program, was accepted and chose her classes all as prescribed. That is where the organized part of the program ended and IES' ineptitude took over. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE A STUDENT WILL STUDY BE ALLOWED TO TAKE CLASSES IN THEIR MAJOR!!! IES is content that a student simply arrives and lives in-country with no focus on whether or not credits will count toward the major. Classes are not figured out until AFTER a student arrives in-country. This means IES can basically do whatever they wish and will have fulfilled their contract. In the Fall of 2019 IES accepted admitted 2014 students, of which 24 were psychology majors. Even though students signed up within the prescribed time frame, all the psychology courses were oversubscribed. Students with psychology majors were not given priority over other non-psychology students - this is insane. It's a psychology program, with psychology prerequisites! IES staff were uncaring, nonchalant and kept emphasizing it was 'all about the experience'. In other words, 'we over-subscribed the program and we'll do what we can to get students into a class - any class'. Six days before the program was due to start, IES "offered" to return fees and allow our student to withdraw - a completely bogus offer as they knew at that point everyone was locked in. I have found the administrative staff arrogant and totally disorganized. They seem to pull the programs together all at the last minute. As a parent spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for a college education, this level of disorganization is totally unacceptable, on multiple levels. The student is reluctant to push for what they want because they don't want it to be held against them while they are in-country, or be labeled complainer. Bottom line - ask lots of questions before committing and get EVERYTHING in writing. Given our experience, I would avoid IES like the plague.

I had such an amazing time. The teachers were great and when I got sick one day I couldn’t come she was very understanding. It’s made so that you can travel on weekends, which was the best part! There were many field trips (I think every week I had a field trip!)