My time in Porto has been anything but boring. I spend my days walking by the ocean and watching huge waves hit the rock formations near the coast. Alternatively, I grab a Pastel de Nata, and a glass of Port wine and I enjoy the business of the city and people-watch near the attractions of Porto. There are many small streets and some viewpoints that make it possible to view the city from above or below, and it is very interesting to see the differences there. I love to go on trips, and explore Portugal outside of Porto, or event take a longer visit to Spain, where I visited my best friend who was doing her Erasmus in Madrid. Places in Portugal like Aveiro, Braga or the world-famous Algarve region showed me the versatility of this underrated country.
The student life and nightlife of Porto are also very lively. There are parties and student activities everyday, and it was nice to learn about Porto’s history with the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling.
I learnt some valuable lessons in stress and general working manners, because the Southern style of life is quite laid back as opposed to the stressed style I was used to. I have learnt to better communicate with those that do not share any of the languages I speak, because not a lot of people speak English in Portugal. Even if people don’t share a language, they can still share their joy in many ways!
My studies in Porto have been a bit different than expected. Learning about the differences in the education system firsthand has been eye-opening. Since I grew up in an Eastern European country, and was used to a distinct style of teaching that when I started my university studies in Finland thought I would never experience again. Oh was I wrong. Even though Portugal is a southern, southwestern European country, the teaching styles are much more similar to Hungarian than to the Finnish one. It was slightly bittersweet to experience a similar hierarchy between students and teachers, that I thought I left after high school. The dynamics between teachers and students are very different here than in Finland, since in the north, teachers really pay attention to your needs and are much more considerate than in Portugal.
I had the pleasure of learning the basics of Portuguese, a language I did not know anything about prior to my move. Now I know the very basics, and I understand quite a lot with the given context. I do not think I will speak Portuguese fluently in the future, but it a in a language family that I didn’t really know previously, so it was a great opportunity to dive in using Portuguese. I was also able to deepen my knowledge in entrepreneurship and marketing, which will be very useful for me for my future working life. One more class I took was intercultural communication. Since I have already have practice living abroad for two and a half years, I was not expecting to learn a lot of new things about the topic, however I feel like it helped me internalize and understand different aspects more, and still taught me things I did not pay attention to before.
All in all, the differences weren’t too bad, and it luckily did not stop me from having fun and staying positive throughout my time in Porto.
– Emília Holányi
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