George Abbato, Plus3 Engineering Summer 2025
My name is George Abbato, and I am a first-year electrical engineering student in Frederick Honors College. I recently was with the Plus3 Program in Bilbao, Spain with engineering and nursing students. Throughout my time in Bilbao, there were a number of things that were unexpected for me: public transportation, lack of public bathrooms, the healthcare system, and Basque culture. However, the most surprising thing for me was the very collective ideology. Most people there were willing to put society as a whole’s needs above their own, and this was highlighted in so many areas of life in Spain. Places that I noticed this most stem from higher taxes, which resulted in great public transportation, cheap education costs, and healthcare.
While in Spain, it was so easy to get around from city to city and within each city. There are expansive railways connecting all major cities, as well as great metro systems that are heavily used in each city we saw. They are all simple to navigate, quick, and overall, a very user-friendly experience. Bilbao’s metro system absolutely blows Pittsburgh’s out of the water, and it creates less of a need for cars there. Granted, Bilbao is much more walkable than Pittsburgh, but this is a result of very careful city planning. It was shocking to be able
to go anywhere that we needed to with ease, even if it was across the city. This was very surprising, but we saw even more of this collective mindset in other areas of society.
In Bilbao, we visited the Bilbao School of Engineering. At this school, we saw how they operated on a day to day basis, and we learned about how their university and programs work. By far the most surprising thing was the cost. It was such a small fraction of the cost to go to college in the US, which was crazy to see. The people in Spain were clearly willing to invest in their future, and these students did not have to pay an insane amount of money like in the US.
This same idea was also reflected in the healthcare in Spain. While maybe the emergency care was not quite up to the same standard as the US, it is provided for everyone in the country, and the primary care is very strong. This also stems from everyone paying some money to give healthcare to the entire country.
While these areas are all very different, they all stem from the same idea of a greater good for society. It was surprising to see this implemented in so many areas of life in Bilbao.
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