TRAVEL REPORT: ERASMUS EXCHANGE AT NOVA, LISBON

Transcription

1 TRAVEL REPORT: ERASMUS EXCHANGE AT NOVA, LISBON AALTO UNIVERSITY, JUNE 2016

2 Table of Contents Preparing for exchange... 2 Exchange studies... 3 Completed courses... 3 Expenses... 6 Impression of Portugal... 6 Conclusion

3 Preparing for exchange Being not an EU citizen, I needed Portuguese visa to stay in the country for more than a threemonths period. The embassy is located in Helsinki and reservation can be done either by phone or . Seemingly, they do not have that many visitors, so you can expect to be able to visit the embassy the next week after making the first contact or even earlier. One would need original acceptance papers from the Portuguese University, proof of income and some other relevant documents, but their amount is reasonable and preparations would not take too much time. Visa itself costs around euro if I remember correctly, but prices might change each year, so it is better if you recheck by asking at the embassy. Visa was issued to me around 10 days after I brought all the required documents, but that is due to the urgency. Typically, you can expect it to be ready in 2-3 weeks and therefore I would recommend beginning the whole visa-related process one month before the flight to Portugal, or even earlier if you have such an opportunity. Both Aalto and NOVA required some paperwork to be done prior to the exchange, but what they asked for is not complicated: basically, you have to sign several papers stating the selected list of courses and some other minor information, then scan them and send either to the Finnish or Portuguese University. Two more important issues when speaking about preparations are booking the flight and accommodation. The distance between countries is significant, so if you do not want to pay euro for the flight in one direction then it is better to book it well in advance. In this case, there is a better chance of finding some offer that would cost you around 200 euros or a bit more. As for accommodation, ideally, you should contact NOVA right after you learn this University will be your exchange destination and try to book a room on their campus. Their housing facilities are limited, so chances that you would have to search for accommodation in the private market are high. Do not expect low prices: despite we are speaking about Portugal that is on average much cheaper than Finland, you will pay 300 euros or more for a room in an apartment with three or more flatmates. I paid 370 euros for a room with own bathroom and kitchen shared with eight people. My friends paid a bit less (around euros) as they booked in advance and did not have to go for one of the first adequate options. Portuguese students pay less but they typically rent rooms for longer periods and use other search tools that are not so much oriented on foreigners and thus offer better prices. By the way, if you arrived in Lisbon and have no accommodation yet, then visit Erasmus Corner. Guys are really friendly there and they have many rental options for exchange students. Yet, be ready to pay around euros then for just a fine room in a shared apartment with three to eight other students. 2

4 Exchange studies Spring semester studies started on the first days of February, so I recommend arriving at the end of January to have couple days for looking around and settling down. I have not heard of any centralized orientation week that the University would organize for incoming Erasmus students. Therefore, I just came on the first day to the lecture and started studying same as other degree students. Yet, in the case you have any questions about courses or other Universityrelated stuff then you can always visit International Office at Nova. People who work there are helpful and typically reply on s within a reasonable time. As an Erasmus exchange student, you are free to choose any courses from the list of those available during the semester. The variety of courses is quite wide: I personally took some studies in Operations, while my friends studied Finances, Economics, Marketing, Customer Behaviour or more general Management courses. As a MSc student, I did not pay much attention to courses offered at the undergraduate level, so I cannot say much about them. The good news though is that Bachelor students can freely enrol to most if not all courses designed for graduates. I have not heard of any courses that would be lectured in Portuguese at Nova, as the University is highly international. Prior to selecting the courses, I recommend checking out the website where students who have already completed their studies evaluate the content, lecturer, exam difficultness and the course in general. The website address changed so, unfortunately, I do not know it, but you can always contact International Office at Nova and the will send you the link by . Importantly, the number of seats in each course is limited, so the University has a so-called bidding system. There you compete with other students for the courses you want to attend, the system is quite clear. I personally have not heard of any Erasmus students who would not get the desired course. Completed courses Leadership and Change Management - Graduate The lecturer spoke about various psychological factors, their classification and ways these factors influence our behaviour, about different leadership styles, their appropriateness nowadays, advantages and disadvantages of those etc. Sounds good? If yes, then you think exactly the same way as I did when enrolling to this course. Nevertheless, the professor is just excessively boring and she makes the content look the same way. The majority of students attended the lectures just to work on their laptops or even simply missed the classes. Nevertheless, this course will be a great choice for those who came to experience Portugal and wish to spend as little time studying as possible. We only had to write a one-page reflection about ourselves, make a group presentation and write a final exam that can be passed without any preparation. Pay attention to the fact grading is not transparent and you might be very surprised with our work evaluation both in a negative or positive way. In general, this was the most boring course for me and I do not recommend it. My course evaluation: 3/5 3

5 Sustainable International Business - Graduate In my opinion, this is the most interesting and probably the most useful course for management students. The lecturer is Nova s dean who has a talent for speaking in a way he is always heard and the audience is interested in what he says during the whole lecture. The course content is predominantly a discussion about different ways to foster the development of third-world countries, eliminate hunger and inequality. Moreover, you will learn about reasons for current huge gaps between countries development levels, future opportunities that come with modern technologies and many other extremely interesting topics. The course is quite demanding if you want to get a good grade, but it is definitely worth it. I would even recommend just attending the lectures if you have not enrolled for the course at all. My course evaluation: 5+/ Consumer and Managerial Decision Making - Graduate This course introduces the field of consumer and managerial decision making. The main focus is on the ability to understanding better the mechanisms, clues and limitations lying behind consumers and managers decisions. The professor is a nice person who gave just couple tasks during the course and graded everybody well. Thus, it is easy to get a good grade for the course presentations and exam. Yet, I found the content quite useless and the guest lecture was boring, so I would only recommend this course to those who want to pass courses without studying and do not care about the content. My course evaluation: 3.5/ Operations Management - Graduate This is an introductory course to operations management where you get an opportunity to learn about waiting times calculations, bottleneck elimination, staffing optimization and other processes related to operations within organizations. The professor is not boring, sometimes makes jokes to wake up the audience, he is quite fair in the evaluation of home tasks and exam. The course content was extremely interesting for me personally, as I have never studied anything similar previously. Beware that you have to study quite much to get a nice grade! The content is preliminary quantitative, so I would recommend the course to those who are missing numbers. My course evaluation: 5/ Managerial Accounting - Graduate This course provides you with basic principles of accounting and explains how they help to take managerial decisions. You do not need any background in accounting to follow the lectures. I would even say that if you have already studied this topic intensively, then this course might seem a bit too basic and easy. The professor is a nice woman who explains everything in details and always does her best to answer the questions. Workload during the course is fair, but the exam might be unpredictable: our one was many times more complicated than the exam students had during the previous semester. In general, I would recommend this course to everyone who knows little about accounting and is a bit curious about the topic. The content is 4

6 quantitative, so it will be enjoyable for those who like mathematics and slightly more complicated if you are not so good with numbers. My course evaluation: 4.5/ Business Model Innovation - Graduate The estimation of this course totally depends on your willingness to study. You can quite easily pass it without gaining almost any knowledge, or you can learn much about leading businesses and reasons why they became so much successful. The course structure is pretty simple: the professor gives an introduction about several companies and their key success points during the first half of the lecture. During the second half, students give in-depth presentations they made about organizations discussed during the previous classes. In total, each group makes two minutes presentation with a detailed analysis of companies. The professor checks attendance, but it does not influence the final grade that much. Thus, the choice is yours: you can only attend those two classes when your group is presenting and then pass the final exam, or you may actually stay during the lectures and learn much about innovative businesses. My course evaluation: 4/ Operations Strategy - Graduate Unlike Operations Management, this course is predominantly theoretical and therefore less enjoyable. You will read the cases about companies like Toyota or JetBlue, the professor will give a presentation about them during the lecture and this will be followed by some discussion. I totally like the idea, but the professor is quite monotonous and is not so good in stimulating discussions among students. Thus, it becomes a bit complicated to follow his lectures. Nevertheless, if you are truly motivated to learn about operations and you can force yourself to be an attentive listener, then you will learn much during the course as the cases are illustrative. The workload is adequate but expect a bit more readings compared to other courses. I rather enjoyed the course, but it would be many times better if the teacher were a better speaker. My course evaluation: 3.5/ Business Strategy and Practice - Graduate Together with Sustainable International Business, this is a must-take course for those who come to Lisbon not just for having fun but for studying as well. The lecturer just recently became a teacher; he has extensive working experience and engages the audience in discussions quite well. Therefore, classes are educative and enjoyable, so you will probably attend them even despite attendance is never checked. During the course, you will learn about creating uncontested market spaces, evaluating strategic options and making the right choices etc. You can expect couple guest lectures where you will get to know how companies position themselves and achieve competitive advantages (we had a very interested held by Harley- Davidson representative and two others). The lecturer loves the Blue Ocean Strategy book and forces everyone to read several chapters from there. Fight against your laziness and just do that! This book and related tools can really help you understand how new market gaps are 5

7 discovered and successful products are created. Warning! As being said, this course is a bad choice for those who just wish to complete courses with minimum efforts. You will get several time-demanding group tasks where you work with degree students who are quite crazy about grades. Besides, the exam is not too complicated but you need some time to prepare for it. My course evaluation: 5/5 Expenses As being already said, you should either book accommodation well in advance and preferably via some local websites or get ready to pay euro per month for a room in an apartment shared with two-ten people. University does not require exchange students to pay any fees during their studies, not-so-good lunch at the local cafeteria costs 3 euro and other expenses totally depend on your rhythm of living. Food in supermarkets (both local and Lidl) is much cheaper than in Finland but do not expect a several times difference. Fruit, bread, grain are typically 20-40% cheaper than they are in Finland but globally recognized brand are sold at more or less the same prices. Eating at restaurants is a great option in Lisbon but you should learn where the best places are located. Otherwise, you will pay twice more for an average dish at the touristic-oriented restaurants. Yet, once you find the best locations you can really enjoy the local cuisine: for example, the most popular place among our group offered delicious seafood or fish dishes for just 5-7 euro. Going out is very cheap in Lisbon compared to Helsinki: you get shots for one euro and beers for one-two euro in the district where the nightlife is the most intense. Entrance to clubs is around 5-10 euro, but you get free entrance to some clubs on certain days of the week with the card that you can make at the Erasmus corner for euro. These clubs are the typical ones with the most popular hits playing usually, so I would not recommend going there sober. Another article of expenses that can be ranged from zero up to infinity is travelling. Portugal is beautiful and has many places that are worth seen, so try to take advantage of that. We often rented cars, as the costs were fair with four-five people in each vehicle. Impression of Portugal I got a feeling that locals are nice chill people who are never aggressive and are always willing to help despite limited English language skills. You will hardly ever hear anyone yelling or screaming, people of all ages enjoy just sitting in cafes or on benches and talking, enjoying the sunshine. Compared to most other countries, there is absolutely no sense of rush. Pink street and Bairro Alto are completely different stories as these are the districts where nightlife is concentrated. Expect a lot of drunk tourists, funny people and many places that try to attract visitors. What is a bit annoying is some kind of local mafia who appear on the streets in the evening and annoy young people by trying to sell them drugs. Speaking to them is not recommended anyway, but also keep in mind that locals say these people are just fooling tourists and never have anything real. As for the weather, we had surprisingly many rainy days during the spring semester. Nevertheless, if you become disappointed with how it looks outside 6

8 at some point, just keep in mind that it is below zero in Finland at the same time. Anyway, you will catch many sunny days and it is recommended to spend some time at beaches since the beginning of May. Conclusion I highly recommend Nova School of Business Economics as a destination for Erasmus exchange. If you want to spend time just enjoying the country and travelling, there are courses that can be passed with almost no efforts. In the case you are interested in learning, Nova offers some really challenging and interesting courses that I never regretted applying for. The atmosphere at the University is international, you will meet Erasmus students from various locations (my friends were German, Swiss, Austrian, Brazilian, Peruvian, Argentinean, Finnish, Spanish, Romanian, Singaporean, Slovakian, Russian, Turkish and many more). Portugal is a beautiful country with rich history, impressive architecture, atmospheric narrow streets, and warm climate. People are open and friendly, prices are low compared to Finland, food is tasty, coffee is truly delicious, and nightlife is active. The only minor cons of my Erasmus exchange were higher than expected prices for accommodation and quite frequent rains. 7