We interviewed Susanna, a graduate of the Master’s in Digital Marketing at Harbour.Space University, who was hired after graduation by one of her professors and now works at her marketing agency in Barcelona. In this conversation, she reflects on her experience during the programme, from the hands-on, industry-driven approach of the classes to the international environment that defined her studies. She also shares her perspective on moving from Brazil to Spain, and how this transition shaped both her personal and professional growth. Finally, Susanna talks about how her education at Harbour.Space helped her step into the marketing industry and build a career that continues to evolve today.

I studied Digital Marketing, and honestly, I enjoyed the entire program. But I think what I enjoyed the most was the fact that the professors were very hands-on and were actively working in the industry at the time. They were not only teaching theory. They were people working in amazing companies, in amazing roles, sharing knowledge that they were applying in their daily work. That made the classes feel very updated, practical, and connected to the real market. I also really loved the fact that the group was very international. I had the opportunity to work with amazing people from all over the world, exchange knowledge, hear different perspectives, and learn from their experiences as well.

I loved living in Barcelona. Barcelona is amazing. I felt like I could do anything there. I felt free, like no one was judging me, and I could just be myself. That was something really special for me. I didn’t feel such a big cultural shift in terms of people or lifestyle, because Barcelona has people from all over the world, so it feels very international. For me, the biggest difference was more related to organization and infrastructure. Coming from Brazil, Barcelona felt very organized. The public transportation is really good, the city feels safer, cleaner, and easier to move around. That was very different from living in a developing country like Brazil.

After I graduated, <a href="https://harbour.space/faculty/stephanie-schwab">Stephanie Schwab</a> herself came to me and offered me a job at her agency. I had never worked as a marketing project manager before, but because I had taken her classes and they were very hands-on, based on practice and real projects, she saw that I had the potential to be a good project manager. She made me the offer, and I’m still working at her agency today, after three years. I still work as a project manager, but I also develop strategy for clients, so my role has grown a lot. It has been a really nice experience, especially because I work with amazing colleagues. The people at the agency are very special, and I’ve learned a lot from working with them.

I would say it changed the way I see digital marketing. I still use the knowledge I acquired during my master’s in the work I do today. Of course, things have changed a lot, especially with AI. When I did my master’s, AI was just starting to become a thing. But I feel that the foundation I got at Harbour.Space still helps me a lot. Everything I learned was very useful then, and it is still very useful in my daily work today. And I believe that, with the knowledge I acquired there, as long as I keep updating myself, I can stay ahead in the market.

I would tell them to really focus on what they are doing there and not underestimate the knowledge and the experience they can have. Be 100% in. Dedicate yourself. Enjoy meeting people, learning from amazing industry leaders, and being surrounded by people from all over the world. See every situation as an opportunity to learn and grow, to be your better self. I think sometimes, because you are “just studying,” you don’t realize how valuable that moment is. But you need to appreciate the opportunity you have to get a good education, to learn from the best, and to connect with amazing people. So my advice would be: live in the moment, put in the hard work, do your best, and really value the opportunity.

&nbsp;Susanna’s journey highlights how a learning experience at Harbour.Space can extend far beyond the classroom, connecting education, people, and real-world opportunities. Thank you, Susanna, for sharing your story with us, and for offering valuable insight into how curiosity, international exposure, and practical learning can shape a meaningful career in digital marketing.

Susanna shares how her Master’s at Harbour.Space helped shape both her mindset and her career path in digital marketing, from gaining a practical, industry-driven education to transitioning directly into a professional role after graduation.

Digital Marketing

From Classroom to Career: Susanna’s Journey in Digital Marketing

Universities have always had a clear mission: educate, equip, and send people out into the world with new skills and knowledge. That hasn't changed. But the most vibrant academic communities today offer something more: a living ecosystem where curious people find each other, ideas collide, and careers take unexpected turns. At Harbour.Space, we've been building that ecosystem from the start. And one of its most energetic expressions is something we launched in October 2025: our Events Hub.

The Events Hub grew organically out of a simple observation: our campus was already a gathering point for some of the most interesting people in tech, design, and entrepreneurship. The question wasn't whether to bring them together, it was how. So we opened our doors. Not just to our students, but to communities, companies, and individual practitioners who wanted a space to share what they know, and be honest about what they've learned the hard way. Since October 2025, we have hosted more than 50 events and welcomed over 1,000 talented visitors through our campus. That number still surprises us a little.

The short answer: a lot. The longer answer reveals just how wide-ranging the community has become. We've hosted hackathons where teams built working AI prototypes in 48 hours. We've run evenings of honest founder failure stories, no filters, no spin, just the moments where things went sideways and what happened next. We've welcomed VC panels, career workshops, robotics competitions, AI engineering meetups, personal development sessions, and open days for students weighing their next step. Some events are high-intensity. Some are just good dinners with interesting people. All of them add something to the fabric of what this campus feels like day to day: more vibrant, more connected, and full of possibilities that no single degree program could manufacture on its own.

You can learn a skill from a course. You can absorb a framework from a lecture. But some of the most important things - a potential co-founder, a hiring manager who remembers your name, a mentor who challenges your assumptions - happen in rooms like ours, when people who wouldn't otherwise cross paths end up talking for two hours after an event ends. That's what we're building toward: a place where a student can sit next to a serial entrepreneur, where a first-time founder can hear a seasoned investor explain exactly what they look for, where a developer can show a working demo and find three collaborators before the night is over.

We're not done. In the months ahead, we're doubling down on making the Events Hub a genuine anchor point for Barcelona's tech and entrepreneurship community. That means more collaborations with communities who want a sea-view venue to call home. More practitioners sharing real knowledge from the field. More formats that connect people in ways that stick. If you’re looking to host an event or build something together, we’d love to open the space to you. Feel free to reach out to me on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tboldyreva/">LinkedIn.</a>

Here's the thing about an ecosystem: it only works if people show up. You don't need to be a Harbour.Space student to be part of what's happening here. You might come as a visitor, someone who heard about a talk and decided to see what it was about. You might come as a lecturer or workshop facilitator, with something worth sharing. You might come as a student, looking for the next chapter. Whatever role fits you, the invitation is open. Come find your space.

Browse our upcoming events <a href="https://harbour.space/events">here</a>, and we'll see you on campus. &nbsp;

Harbour.Space is turning its campus into a vibrant hub for tech, design, and entrepreneurship through its Events Hub launched in 2025, hosting hackathons, talks, and networking events. The goal is to go beyond traditional education by creating real connections that lead to collaboration, careers, and new ideas in Barcelona’s innovation ecosystem.

Harbour Space

More than an institute: how Harbour.Space became Barcelona's hub for ideas and connection

There's a version of the "best city to study" conversation that goes: rankings, employment rates, faculty-to-student ratios. All important. All a little dry. Then there's the version where someone who studied in Barcelona tells you about their Tuesday: a morning seminar, lunch with classmates from four different countries, a late afternoon swim, tapas somewhere loud and cheap, and a rooftop with a view of the Sagrada Família lit up at dusk. Rankings don't quite capture that. Barcelona is a city that does something rare: it takes your academic ambitions seriously and makes the rest of your life genuinely worth living. For students at Harbour.Space University, that's not a happy accident, it's the whole point.

Let's get this out of the way immediately, because it matters more than it sounds. Harbour.Space's campus sits less than five minutes from the Mediterranean. Not "close to the beach" in the way cities sometimes claim, we mean step outside, walk five minutes, and you're there. Shoes off, sand underfoot, sea in front of you. That's the actual commute from class to coastline. For a student, this changes the texture of daily life in ways you don't fully anticipate until you're living it. A tough week of deadlines feels different when Friday afternoon means a swim. Study groups migrate to the seafront. The beach becomes a decompression chamber, always available, always free and the fact that your university put it that close wasn't an accident. Barcelona has over four kilometres of urban beaches, and they're genuinely good, clean water, consistent sun for most of the academic year, and a waterfront promenade that makes even a walk between classes feel like something worth taking slowly. Other great university cities have parks. Barcelona has the Mediterranean (and also the parks ;). &nbsp;

Barcelona has a talent for satisfying very different kinds of people at the same time. It's one of the few places where the tech crowd, the art crowd, the nightlife crowd, and the slow-coffee-on-a-Sunday crowd all feel equally at home. For students, this matters because your interests don't pause when you enroll. The city has a thriving startup and tech ecosystem, particularly relevant for Harbour.Space students in tech, design, and business, with regular meetups, conferences, and networking events that blur the line between campus life and professional life in the best possible way. If your thing is music, Barcelona hosts Primavera Sound and Sónar, two of Europe's most respected festivals. If it's food, the city is a destination in itself, from the chaos and colour of La Boqueria to neighbourhood restaurants where a full lunch with wine costs less than a sandwich in most capital cities. If it's sport, FC Barça plays at one of the most iconic stadiums in the world, and the city's cycling and running culture means you'll have no excuse to stop moving. There is genuinely always something happening. The challenge in Barcelona isn't finding things to do, it's choosing.

Some cities make you work for their culture. Barcelona puts it in front of you whether you're looking for it or not. Gaudí is the obvious starting point, and for good reason. The Sagrada Família is one of the most astonishing buildings on earth, the kind of thing that reshapes your sense of what architecture can be. Park Güell sits above the city like a fairy tale that got out of hand in the best possible way. Casa Batlló and Casa Milà line the Passeig de Gràcia and are worth walking past even if you never go inside. But Barcelona's culture runs much deeper than one genius. The Picasso Museum holds one of the most important collections of his early work. The MACBA, the contemporary art museum, is a serious institution with a great permanent collection and a calendar of exhibitions that rivals bigger capitals. The Palau de la Música Catalana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a concert hall so ornate it feels like the building itself is performing. And then there's the city's street life: the Gothic Quarter's medieval lanes, the Modernista architecture scattered through Eixample, the murals, the markets, the squares full of people at hours that would be unreasonable anywhere else. Culture in Barcelona isn't something you schedule. It's just the backdrop.

This is underrated in the study-abroad conversation, possibly because it seems too obvious. But it matters enormously: Barcelona gets around 300 days of sunshine a year. Winters are mild. Summers are long. The kind of grey, relentless cold that can quietly drain your energy through a long academic year is largely absent. There's genuine evidence that sunlight and outdoor access affect mood, motivation, and cognitive performance. Barcelona, almost accidentally, is optimised for student wellbeing in ways that more traditionally "prestigious" university cities simply aren't.

Here's the argument that often surprises people: Barcelona isn't just a great place to study, it's a genuinely strategic place to launch a career. The city has quietly become one of Europe's most important tech and business hubs. Companies like Glovo, Wallbox, and Factorial were founded here. Amazon, Cisco, King, and Typeform have significant offices in the city. The startup scene is active and accessible, Barcelona consistently ranks among the top five European cities for venture capital investment, and the ecosystem is small enough that a motivated student can actually get in front of the right people. For Harbour.Space students in particular, studying technology, design, entrepreneurship, this proximity is not theoretical. Internship opportunities, industry events, and company visits are part of the fabric of studying here. You're not waiting until graduation to start building your professional network; you're doing it on a Tuesday over coffee in Poblenou, Barcelona's main innovation district, a short ride from campus. The languages help too. Spanish opens a job market of 500 million people. Catalan signals local commitment. English runs most of the international tech world. Study in Barcelona and you'll pick up functional fluency in at least two of those without really trying. The bottom line: when you're evaluating where to study, it's worth asking not just where you'll be happy for three years, but where you'll be well-positioned after. Barcelona answers both questions well.

Every city makes promises to prospective students. Barcelona's are unusual because they're so easy to verify: come for a weekend, walk around, and see whether it delivers. It almost always does. For students at Harbour.Space, Barcelona isn't a backdrop to their education, it's part of it. The city teaches you things the curriculum doesn't: how to navigate a place that operates on its own logic, how to be comfortable in a multilingual environment, how to build a life that has actual texture to it. Those turn out to be useful skills. The beach, the culture, the food, the energy, the sun, none of it is incidental. It's the whole point.

From a campus five minutes from the beach to a city that never runs out of things to do, Barcelona makes a compelling case for being the ultimate place to build your future. Here's why students who choose Barcelona don't just get a degree, they get a life.

Student life

Barcelona is the best city to study — And we can prove it

There is a gap in tech hiring that almost everyone has felt but few companies have actually closed: graduates arrive with theory, companies need practice. At Harbour.Space, we built a model that eliminates that gap by design — not with a better curriculum, but by making education and employment happen at the same time. Our Work &amp; Study programme is the mechanism. Partner companies sponsor talented individuals from around the world, covering tuition and a living stipend while they study in Barcelona and work part-time on real projects. Not intern projects. Production-level work, from day one. MediQuo is one of the clearest proofs that this works. You can read how the programme works in detail <a href="https://scholarship.harbour.space/?_gl=1*w171ks*_gcl_au*MTc1MTk3Mjk5OC4xNzcwMjgxMjgx">here</a>, but what I want to focus on is the outcome.

<a href="https://www.mediquo.com/">MediQuo</a> is a Barcelona-based digital health company that centralises telemedicine for insurers, hospitals, companies, and patients. It is a technically complex platform built around a purpose that matters, making quality healthcare accessible to everyone, everywhere. That sense of purpose, I think, is part of why the partnership has worked. Developers who join MediQuo through Harbour.Space are not just filling roles. They are building something that affects real people's lives.

Since 2021, every student MediQuo has sponsored through the Work &amp; Study programme has been offered a full employment contract at the end of their studies. Not most of them. All of them. The talents who have been part of this journey:

<ul><li>Miriam Gonzales: Mexico | Front-end Developer — <a href="https://harbour.space/barcelona/master/front-end-development">Master of Front-end Development</a></li><li>Mario Caceres: Peru | UX Designer — <a href="https://harbour.space/barcelona/master/front-end-development">Master of Front-end Development</a></li><li>Samuel David Suarez: Cuba | Fullstack Developer — <a href="https://harbour.space/barcelona/master/front-end-development">Master of Front-end Development</a></li><li>Fernando Valdes Garcia: Cuba | Backend Developer — <a href="https://harbour.space/barcelona/bachelor/computer-science">Bachelor of Computer Science</a></li><li>Jhulian Garcia: Cuba | Front-end Developer — <a href="https://harbour.space/barcelona/master/front-end-development">Master of Front-end Development</a> &nbsp;</li></ul>

Five people. Four specialisations. One consistent outcome. The reason is simple: by the time the programme ends, MediQuo already knows exactly what each talent can do. The hiring decision is not a leap of faith, it is a confirmation of something already proven in production.

Programs like this do not run for four years without genuine commitment. On MediQuo's side, that commitment has been led by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillemserraautonell/">Guillem Serra</a>, CEO and Co-founder. His decision to keep expanding the partnership — rather than just renewing it, says something important: this is not CSR. It is a talent strategy that works.

MediQuo is now looking for the next cohort. Three Work &amp; Study positions are available, real roles, real product, Barcelona, with a company that has hired every student it has ever sponsored. → <a href="https://scholarship.harbour.space/work-study/fullstack-developer-mediquo?_gl=1*fmuk3r*_gcl_au*MTc1MTk3Mjk5OC4xNzcwMjgxMjgx">Fullstack Developer</a>, for developers comfortable on both sides of the stack. You will own features end-to-end, no handoffs. Node.js backend, modern framework on the front, 2–4 years of experience. If you have only gone deep on one side, this is not the right fit. → <a href="https://scholarship.harbour.space/work-study/front-end-developer?_gl=1*fmuk3r*_gcl_au*MTc1MTk3Mjk5OC4xNzcwMjgxMjgx">Front-End Developer</a>, for developers who care about what users see and feel. Responsive UI, API integration, high bar on accessibility and performance. React, Vue, or Angular expected. Static sites with no API work is not enough. → <a href="https://scholarship.harbour.space/work-study/backend-developer?_gl=1*fmuk3r*_gcl_au*MTc1MTk3Mjk5OC4xNzcwMjgxMjgx">Backend Developer</a>, node.js, scalable APIs, third-party integrations — on a platform where security and privacy are non-negotiable. Healthcare infrastructure. 2–4 years of solid backend experience required. All three roles are in Barcelona, none remote. You study. You work. You prove yourself. And if history is any guide, you get hired.

Many students who have come through the MediQuo partnership have studied the <a href="https://harbour.space/barcelona/master/interaction-design">Master in Interaction Design</a> at Harbour.Space. Building great healthcare technology is both an engineering and a design challenge, and the best developers understand both. Apply before 10 May and receive 25% off tuition. The deadline is close. For Mario, Samuel, Fernando, and Jhulian, developers from Peru and Cuba who came to Barcelona and built careers in healthcare technology, the Work &amp; Study programme changed everything. MediQuo made that possible. And they are ready to do it again. If you are ready too, <a href="https://join.harbour.space/programmes/interaction-design?utm_campaign=id-spring-2026&amp;utm_medium=organic&amp;utm_source=web&amp;utm_content=side-banner&amp;utm_term=general&amp;_gl=1*zv4e07*_gcl_au*MTc1MTk3Mjk5OC4xNzcwMjgxMjgx">start your application here.</a>

Since 2021, MediQuo has partnered with Harbour.Space through the Work & Study programme, sponsoring talented developers from around the world to study and work in Barcelona simultaneously. Every single cohort has ended with a full employment contract. Now they are opening three new positions. Here is why that track record matters.

Hired. Every time: how MediQuo turns our students into full-time developers

Scholarships available worldwide

Dream Big with Harbour.Space

Blog of Harbour.Space, a university for technology and design in Barcelona, taught in English. Programmes include computer science, maths and digital marketing.

From Classroom to Career: Susanna’s Journey in Digital Marketing

More Than an Institute: How Harbour.Space Became Barcelona's Hub for Ideas and Connection

Barcelona Is the Best City to Study — and We Can Prove It