STUDENT REPORT FROM UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA PORTUGUESA – FALL 2009
Name of the University: Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP)
Names of the students: Karoline Andersen Ask and Marte Gunnarsli
Exchange semester: Fall 2009
I GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE SCHOOL
The university is located approximately 10 minutes by
metro from the citycenter. You can easily arrive at school
with buss or metro. The university consists of four buildings
that house classrooms, auditoria, completely new IT rooms,
the Library, the Rector's Office, the administrative and
academic services department, a Conference Center, bar,
canteens and a restaurant, seating and function spaces,
the bookshop/stationer and copy shop, and a bank branch.
There are about 150 exchange students at the university
this semester with approximately a 50/50 split between undergraduates and master students.
The fall semester is divided into two parts where you finish your first selected courses with
final exams in October and the second part in December/January. Most of the courses are 3
ECTS.
II PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Information before you left
We received a lot of information before we left; information about the school, the courses and
the daily Portuguese life. We were asked to choose courses 1 month before we arrived based
on the information found about the courses online. You can just choose some courses,
because during the first week of school it is no problem to change the courses you already
selected. We were also assigned to a buddy, a student at Catolica; that would help us the first
couple of days in Lisbon.
Visa Procedure and travel experiences
Traveling to Portugal does not require a VISA. The Portuguese airline company TAP has
direct flights from Oslo to Lisbon which takes approximately 4 hours.
Academic Calendar
We arrived in Lisbon on 31st of August and had a couple of days to get to know the city before
the introduction days started the 2nd of September. The 1st trimester lasted from 7th of
September – 16th of October. Then we had an exam period until 2nd of November. The
second trimester lasted from 3rd of November – 16th of December. Then you have a new
exam period from 17th – 22nd of December. The exam period continues from 4th to 13th of
January. There is no problem to make an arrangement to take the exams after Christmas
back at BI in January.
Reception
We were picked up at the airport by Marte’s buddy, who was very helpful and showed us
around. The first days of school were introduction days, where we were showed around the
school, got to learn the professors and the other exchange students. We got a lot (too much)
of information during these days, that came in hand later. We also signed up for Erasmus
Lisboa, a student organization arranging parties and trips for exchange students. Here we got
a Portuguese sim-card as well, which allowed us to call everyone with same card for free. The
students arranged social activities so that everyone got to know each other.
Housing
We searched for an apartment before we left Norway, but decided that renting something we
only had seen some picture of was not a good idea. So we booked a hotel for the first week.
Most students do this and search for an apartment when they arrive. We got help from the
school to find a place and to arrange so we could see some different apartments. The
standards of the apart/rooms vary, so we will recommend seeing some before choosing one.
You will get a good single room for 200-350 EURO.
Costs
Living in Lisbon is cheap compared to Norway. You will get a good meal at a restaurant for
around 10-15 EURO, taking a cab is cheap, metro card for a month is 14 EURO (if you are
under 23) and 28 (if you are older), drinks are dangerously cheap.
The International Office
The international office is very helpful.
Social Activities
We have gotten a lot of friends
both exchange and Portuguese
during our stay. The first days with
all the social activities contributed
to this. We hang out every day
and rarely stayed home in the
evenings.
Erasmus
Lisboa
arranges parties every week, in
addition an important part of
experiencing Lisbon is the nightlife
in Bairro Alto.
Culture and Language
Lisbon is a beautiful charming city with a lot to see. It is a city offering a big city life and the
possibilities to go to beautiful beaches. The weather is good; we were especially lucky with
our fall semester and were able to go to the beach in the end of October.
The Portuguese culture is different from the Norwegian. Everything takes a lot of time.
Supermarket ladies works slow, Portuguese people always shows up late and fixing the metro
card takes at least 4 days, you have to go to three different stations to do different steps of
the registration. In general Portuguese people are friendly; most of them speak or at least try
to speak English, but there is still a lack of English among the cab drivers and some of the
people working in the supermarket. It is possible to take a Portuguese language course at
school, but we did not do this. Learning Portuguese when you are not from a southern country
where they speak a Latin-language is difficult, and the teachers are not that good. After living
here for almost 4 moths we have learned some basic daily life sentences, and for us that is
enough.
Cultural and Social Effects from the Exchange Experience
This has been the best half a year in our life. The exchange has made us more open to new
people, we have gotten to learn a new cultural and we have met people from all over the
world that we hopefully will keep in touch with. The exchange has also made us more open
minded to work abroad in the future.
III ACADEMIC INFORMATION
The Teaching situation
The courses are taught in English and Portuguese, with no particular language problems for
foreign students to attend the lessons in English. The level of English is quite similar to the
professors at BI, and the professors are both Portuguese and foreigners. The classes are
often small with a lot of interaction with the students. One difference compared to BI was the
fact that the classes consists of 1.5 hours of teaching before having a break of 10-15 minutes
and then another 1.5 hours of teaching. This was something that we needed some time to get
used to. We think that the theory presented in class was a mixture of theoretical and practical
information. Moreover, the material presented in class was not that advanced, but the courses
required a lot of presentations, case work and individual assignments in addition to the final
exam that was quite time consuming. The professors were very helpful in answering
questions and e-mails if you had any problems during the course.
Required Literature
The literature is mainly in English, but some of the professors had additional Portuguese
literature. We did not buy any books, but used the articles, power point slides and cases to
learn the material. The exams are mainly based on the lectures. In some courses, there was
difficult to get an overview of the teaching material as it was quite broad. To some extent, it
was slightly frustrating to only learn the broad overview rather than learn the models and
literature in a more detailed way. However, this might be a natural result of the smaller size of
the courses compared to BI.
Exams
As already mentioned, class participation, individual assignments, case-work and
presentations are frequently used as part of your grade in many courses. The structure of the
final exams varies between multiple choice, home-exam, short-answers and
discussion/analyzing questions. The passing grade was either 8 or 10 from a scale of 0 – 20.
The knowledge level for passing was quite low.
Other
To access the library the student card is required. The library is quite old and does not have a
lot of plugs to charge the battery of your computer. Moreover, it was often a problem to find
available seats for studying at the university. The access to the computers is the same
procedure as at BI with a login number and password.
Description of Courses
- 351009 Value Based Management (3 ECTS), home-exam
The course had quite heavy workload, but not particularly difficult theoretically.
- 351019 Consumer Behaviour (3 ECTS), short answers
The course is quite elementary and practical.
- 351033 Performance evaluation (3ECTS), multiple choice
The course is interesting and relevant, especially for finance students.
- 351017 Economic policy (3 ECTS), discussion/analyzing questions
It was slightly hard to get an overview of this course.
- 351021 Brand Management Normal (3 ECTS), short answers
The course is quite elementary and practical.
- 351016 Supply chain management (3 ECTS), short answers
The course has cases every week in addition to a simulation game.
- 351034 International financial reporting standards (IFRS) (3ECTS), short answers
The course is quite theoretical with presentations every week.
- 351095 Energy economics (3ECTS), discussion/analyzing questions
The course is quite theoretical.
Any other experiences:
We can strongly recommend UCP for your exchange experience, and are very satisfied with
our exchange period.
Names and e-mails:
Karoline Ask – karoline_ask@hotmail.com
Marte Gunnarsli – marte_gunnarsli@hotmail.com