University in Porto

FMUP

In the previous post about Erasmus I said that I’d like to talk here about my university. And no, I didn't forget, but more than about the university I’d like to talk about the “Faculdade de medicina da Universidade do Porto”, FMUP for friends, since it’s the only one I know.

If they asked me to grade it from zero to ten, I’d give it an eight. A big, fat, round eight. An eight with arms and legs and sharp teeth that goes around destroying the city, as Godzilla did in its youth, and shooting laser from its… ok, Laura. Relax.

As I was saying, and as I said previously in other posts, I am in love with the faculty here. And I am sorry I can’t use pictures, but I never took the camera with me to the classes.

The building is old (like the 90% of the things in this city), but so is my faculty in Spain. And the arrangement is chaotic. One of the things I don’t like is that the hospital and the faculty are together. In Spain I have my faculty, with the classes, the library, the labs, students offices, etc. If I cross the street I have one part of the hospital, and if I go down a little slope (little slope of hell) I find the other part of the hospital, Valdecilla. Here everything is one. So there I was, waiting to go inside a class when two nurses almost run over me with a pallet carrying a patient.

So I don’t like that, and I think it’s not properly thought. An ill person does not have to see in his usual route around the hospital I don’t know how many groups of students laughing and joking about whatever. I don’t find it appropriate.

But well, stopping griping… it’s not the buildings or the hospital what I am in love with. But the people, the students and the college spirit of this place.

Study Buddy Programm

The first day I went to college I found Maria, my "buddy". Buddies program matches an Erasmus student with a normal Portuguese student that offers himself to help us with what we may need. From finding accommodation or going to pick us up at the airport and to help us fit in the environment of the faculty. So Maria helped me a lot, and that first day she showed me everything, and explained me some things. The first thing I saw was all the seniors with their black cloaks (I like calling them ravens), and the freshmen dressing normally. In fact a senior thought I was a newbie, and back then I understood nothing of Portuguese so I answered saying “¿Qué? No, no. ¡Erasmus! ”.

So these cloaks… I received so many explanations about what they are or mean that I no longer have any idea of what they are about. I know it’s a tradition all over the country, not only in Porto. And I know that far from making fun of it, like I am sure would happen in Spain, everybody participates in it.

They told me that being a student of one year or another gives you the right to tie it in different ways, that you have to make cuts on it for each disappointment in love, and that’s why some people have them very very broken. Or that depending on the year they can call you in different ways… or was it depending on the elements your cloak has? No idea, and I really don’t know what’s true or not.

The most funny thing of all of this is that, not everyone, but many many people wear it. And they wear it when they want. They dress in black, wear the cloak and done, right to classes. And what about when you’re relaxed, having a coffee somewhere one afternoon and you see a group of ravens going for a walk? And even better... what about when you go out at night and see a group of ravens, partying? If they are gingers you think “fuck, Weasleys, do you know how to have fun? ”.

Without abandoning this topic of cloaks and Harry Potter, it seems like our friend J. K. Rowling was in Porto, having a coffee in café Majestic in Rua Santa Catarina, a very elegant café not far from my place, when she wrote the first words of the Harry Potter saga. And her inspiration arrived when she saw all of these students dressing that way. That’s why in Hogwarts students look like those in Portuguese universities. We can say that Harry Potter is more Portuguese than English.

And another fact related to Porto and Harry Potter is the bookshop of “Lello e Irmão". It’s a beautiful bookshop, in the inside and the outside. And some scenes of the movies were filmed there. Looks like the author liked the city.

Tuna

Well, continuing with the university, another thing that I love is the “Tuna”, this student’s music group. Yes, I know that it is not a Portuguese tradition, but faculties of medicine’s tradition, we have them in Spain too. Okay so… how many “Tunas” have you seen in the streets of Spain, usually? Because there are not many… in some Spanish cities more than others, but in general, being honest, we can say that Spanish “tuna” is more dead than alive.

In my faculty here there is a “Tuna” group for boys and girls, and they have their dressing rooms and everything, where they can leave the instruments and other stuff. There’s a corridor in the faculty full of glass cabinets where they expose all the prizes they have won, which are not few. The students of the “tuna” walk around with their suits and the instruments, and you can be in the faculty and hear a double bass sounding somewhere.

Socialising with the People

And last but not less important… the feeling of unity. It may sound cheesy, but since I am sick of people in my Spanish faculty, really sick, you come here and it’s like “what the hell? Is it allowed to be friends with everybody? ”. Those little groups of friends, closed to the rest, even getting on bad with the rest, that are so usual in my Spanish faculty, here I checked and they don’t exist.

Obviously, people get on better with some than with others, and they have some closer friends than others. But today I can have lunch with these people and tomorrow with others, and today you see them with that group, and tomorrow with another. And you can walk with them through the corridors and look how everybody says hi, no matter what year they are in, they stop, talk, ask things, make jokes… you know, being social, open and nice. We should take classes of that in Santander (I won’t dare to talk about the rest of Spain but…).

And last! Now for sure, I promise. I am surprised of how the students and teachers have such close relations. Of how everybody, not only the “nerds”, study everyday and attend classes having studied before. Or the fact that a student interrupting the class to ask something is a reason to start a collective debate and not to start a bunch of complaints from other students because “there it is, the annoying person of the class”.

I'm also surprised about how students decide to wait to have lunch for two hours, all together having a coffee in the cafe, so they can wait for the teacher, who should be free after two hours and told them before that if they wanted they could wait so he could show them something that’s not compulsory, by the way.

In conclusion I’d like to make a little reflection about Erasmus, and about what people think it is. I have my mum there in Spain so worried, asking me every time we talk if I studied something that day. My uncles, when I was in Spain before coming here, would not stop telling me things like “What an Orgasmus year you’ll have”. I talked with Friends who would not go on Erasmus because it would be an academic year wasted (I thought the same not long ago).

Source

So, after a month here, and not knowing yet what my results will be, I want to say that it’s being a really enriching experience, also in an academic way. It’s also true that Erasmus can be a disaster in that aspect if you don’t know how to choose your destination. Before coming I searched for information of the university, if it was a good or a bad one, because those things worried me.

If you decide to go on Erasmus and only pay attention to the country, or to the fact that there's more or less parties, maybe you’re lucky and the university is good, but maybe not and your year could become an academic waste. Still, it's your attitude about it what counts more.

After everything we could say that there still is a way to enjoy your Erasmus without destroying your degree. And that if you want to enjoy your Erasmus without destroying your degree while partying a lot and knowing a lot of people, you can as well.

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