For a whole year, a four-year student of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Mogilev A.Kuleshov State University, Alexandra Peregudova, studied at the University of Porto. At the beginning of the second year of her studying at Mogilev State A.Kuleshov University the girl notices an announcement, which tells about the program “Erasmus Mundus”. “I was interested in the program immediately, - Alexandra says. - I found out which documents I need to collect and when I should send them to the international department. In addition to standard documents, I needed to write 3 motivation letters and an autobiography. Everything had to be in English. In principle, there were no difficulties with anything, everything was arranged quickly.”
There were 3 letters to 3 universities in different countries. The first confirmation came from Portugal. And on September 2, 2016 Alexandra was in Porto. For a year the girl studied at Universidade do Porto, specializing in Literature, Languages and Culture. It should be noted that the girl had to pay only a visa. But she had to pay monthly 264 euros from the scholarship, including all bills, for living in a hostel. As Alexander says, there was the hostel of a hallway type, and the rooms were more like small apartments. The girl lived there with another student from Belarus.
“I really enjoyed the city and the hostel. But you know it was most of all gratifying that so-called curators were assigned to us. They helped us to collect necessary papers, conducted excursions, if we needed other help, no matter what, they always helped us. And my curator Duard has also become a best friend. The most interesting thing was that anyone could become such an assistant.” Upon the arrival, two weeks was given for adaptation: acquaintance with the university, subjects, teachers and their requirements. “We had to choose 5 compulsory subjects, at the end of the semester there were exams. In general, we could attend any lectures of all courses. Immediately we registered in the general university system. Thus, we used the Internet to look at the schedule, learn the terms of the session. The teachers also left the questions on their subjects for students there. The main difference in their education is that there are no specific questions for exams. You prepare with accordance to the program. You come to the exam, the teacher puts a sheet with assignments - and this can be anything. For example, I somehow got a question about North American literature: American ideology. You sit there and write everything you remember.”
As the girl told, there were items that didn’t need to be handed over at all. “You go to classes, work for a semester, take tests and everything. And sometimes it happens: you attend lectures, you work, but your assessment depends only on the results of the exam. All these requirements are set by the teacher. We are used to the fact that we have a 10-point assessment system, but in Portugal there is 20-point system. They study for 3 years, than there is a year of magistracy. Also one class lasts 2 hours. There are no calls, so the teacher follows the time and lets the students go.”
Alexandra notes that she liked everything at the university, except that they do not have practical classes, only lectures. “At times there was not enough compulsory homework. However, students have more time for self-education. And I want to note that Portuguese people like to learn. They have all the conditions to do this. There was a library of 7 floors in our educational building. And a lot of students came there. The only drawback was that there was only one copy of each book. You could find out where the literature you are interested in was when it would be brought and so on, on the Internet.
After studying for a year in another country, I understand that at our university I like the variety of subjects, yet for general development it is useful.
In my spare time I liked to go to the movies the most. All new films were showed in the original language with Portuguese subtitles. Several sessions a day were also in Portuguese. And the most memorable is that I managed several times to go to Barcelona, Milan, Amsterdam, Madrid, Paris, Madeira Island and a number of other small cities.”
During the entire period of training the girl brought up her knowledge of English and French, began to learn Portuguese. As Alexandra observes, Erasmus Mundus is just a gift of destiny for students. And indeed! Erasmus Mundus is a program that unites children of different nationalities. It is the program, through which you get acquainted with the education system, culture and people of another country.