University in Portuguese

I was curious about my daily life at university. You always have to think about that it is a different country, with different culture, different educational system and therefore also the classes and life at university can be really different. After my experiences in Paris, I was prepared for almost everything, but honestly, at first, I was surprised positively.

Already when still being at home, I already recieved a lot of help. I was sent timetables, available courses and tips for finding accommodation. I always got fast and helpful answers. I was always very happy about the cooperation and the results of discussions.

The Universidade Católica has sections all over the country: In Lisbon, Viseu, Braga and Porto. The building in Lisbon is small and also doesn’t have many students. Might be the consequence of being a private and therefore also expensive university and that it doesn’t offer all sections of studies. It is especially known for its law and economic studies, but also offers courses in communication and languages. The furniture is very little, it has old wooden chairs and tables, the technology was already very old and not very reliable and until now, I haven’t found a heating, neither from seeing nor from feeling it.

The professors seem to be competent, at least most of them. There are always exceptions. They are motivated and know a lot about their area. They pay special attention to the Erasmus students and always offer help and like to integrate us.

However, they have a different understanding than we Germans. I am always – as I already had been in Paris – the first one to enter the classroom. Professors and other students are always late. Professors only about 10 minutes, students up to half an hour. And that is not even the bad part, even worse is that they don’t just enter, but knock the door and then wait until the professor allows them to enter – at the 10th student already annoyed. Then, they still have to explain their excuse and start discussions why they are late. This is super annoying as the class is always interrupted for several minutes.

Classes are one and a half hours, but the last 15 minutes are always meant to be a pause or give time for changing the room as they don’t have pauses, except the one for lunch. But, some professors don’t even do classes for that long and just end after one hour or even earlier and others just keep going until the students leave annoyed. These are normally the ones, that arrive very late. We get a one hour pause for lunch, from 1pm until 2pm.

For lunch, we got the cantina to eat. The cantina of our faculty is very small, but the law faculty has another bigger one. The food is actually not very cheap as a meal costs 3, 50 € and is pretty small, it is clearly more expensive than I am used to from Germany. The dishes are ok, but not very good and everyday, you have the choice between the same five or six dishes. In winter, it might even be cold. Just imagine, you have been freezing all day in university and are looking forward something hot to eat and then they serve you cold noodles. But, they have microwaves, which means two and long waiting lines, but better than nothing. So, I normally cook at home, take my food with me and then heat it up. That comes a lot cheaper and normally also tastes better.

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Let’s talk about the classes. We have an online portal, where we can see all our documents, and have access to all the needed materials. Extra materials are handed out in classes. Generally, we have midterm exams, final exams, plus a presentation or essay. The average will be our grade for the class. I took three classes, which are: Língua Portuguesa, Cultura Portuguesa and Portuguese Writing Skills and all of them in Portuguese. They also offer classes in English for the Erasmus students who don’t speak Portuguese, but as I came here to improve my language skills, it didn’t make sense to take them in English. And also; I didn’t need any courses for my home university as I already finished all of them, before coming here. So, I could choose whatever I wanted. We had an evaluation test to see our levels of Portuguese and were only allowed to take our classes in Portuguese, if we were good enough. I achieved my level and so was allowed.

In Língua Portuguesa, we should do grammar, linguistics, writing all kind of texts and talk about literature. My professor was really kind, she always made sure the Erasmus kept up and that her lessons were interesting for everone. I really liked her. But after a few weeks, I had to change the class as it was too full and so, got another professor. His lessons were, to be honest, horrible. He only talked about literature as it was the only important thing of a language and thought that he was the best. He speaks fluently Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, German and French and already translated some very important books. After some lessons, you can really not hear it anymore, especially as I never heard him say more than several words in foreign languages. He was always talking about how bad we Erasmus were in Portuguese – even if the evaluation test and all other teachers were very impressed with our knowledge of the language. He said, we didn’t even speak Portuguese, we just thought it was and that it was the Portuguese who miraculously understood us. We should at least have the same level as the native speakers. After my first exam, where I achieved a good grade of 13 points – some of the Portuguese even failed, so it can’t be too bad -, he told us to make every day translations of poems to improve our language. “Ah, and poems are every day language? ”, I asked him. “You don’t like poems? ”, he answered. I said: “I do, but, I don’t want to talk like that. ”

I think that was the moment, he started to have issues with me. Even if told, I didn’t translate poems, but short stories. One day, some of the Eramus asked why the other class by chance had all better grades and were allowed to use dictionnaries and we don't. His answer was that it had nothing to do with that and we are just too stupid, We should speak as good Portuguese as the Portuguese itself. I asked him, how that should be possible, after only learning it for two years. He was surprised: “Only two years? But, you must have learned or spoken it before? ”. No, where should I? In Germany, I don’t know about any school that offers Portuguese and I don’t have any Portuguese relatives, nor do I know anyone Portuguese. He, must have thought, we learn it in school, like for example French, which I speak for eleven years. Yes, maybe for eleven years my Portuguese would be bad, but surely not for two. He then admitted that after two years, he didn’t speak any language that well and seemed kinder – at least for the rest of the day and then seemed to have forgotten about that conversation. We had to write an essay at home, about two pages long and got more than two weeks for that. In Germany, we would have only gotten like one day for that. But, for me it was good, because I am really good in Grammar and just need my time to read it several times. I also had the possibility to read many sources and look up some vocabulary. But even then, it only took me one weekend to write and I also didn’t have more time with all my travels and other tasks.

When we were told our grades, he gave back the essays to everyone and then asked me in front of everyone: “Nadine, who wrote your essay? ”. I told him that it was me and was a little surprised. I looked up my grade and it was 16 points, which is pretty good. He didn’t believe and until today doesn’t. It can’t be that I was so bad -if you can see 13 as bad, for a foreign student - in an exam under time pressure, where I was not allowed to use a dictionary and didn’t know some of the most important words in the exam and could be so good in an essay, for which I had two weeks time, a dictionary and scientific sources. I also don’t understand that, what a mystery! Until today he thinks that some Portuguese wrote the essay for me. I don’t care, I have my grade and even if I hadn’t, I would not need it. He then always started to tell the whole class my mistakes that I made in my translations and started to make fun of me in front of the whole class. Wow, what a competent professor! Someone like that would really fast have problems in Germany. But, I didn’t really care as I talked with other professors and got more than good feedback. In my last exam, I only passed with 10 points, which I must admit was my mistake as I didn’t learn. I had three weeks of constant visits and sightseeing, which I also preferred, and only speaking French. Of course, my Portuguese suffered. On top of that, I defended a point of view in the essay, that I was sure that my professor would not like, but was my point of view.

In Cultura Portuguesa, we spoke about – what a surprise – Portuguese culture. As the Portuguese have already been well known sea farers and discoverers, we speak a lot about travelling and identity. I really liked the professor, she was -as I think – a typical Portuguese: small, friendly, enthusiastic. She made really good interactive and comprehensive lessons. We all have to make a 15 minutes presentation of a topic, which I did with another Erasmus girl about the new book of Yann Martel about Portugal. We then had to write a five pages essay about that and had a midterm exam, which was writing about the topics discussed in class.

Portuguese writing skills is a course of learning how to write different kinds of texts. In the beginning, we thought it was only for international students, but it had only been by chance that we were only international students and so few. This course seemed very good in the beginning, but got very boring after some time. Our professor was always talking about the same stuff and soon I could end her sentences, because I already heard them so many times. But, what I learned was many historic stories and legends about Portugal, which I sometimes mention in my blog. She was always late and got annoyed, when we asked her about talking about something else. Also she thought, she spoke well many languages. But alsways that she spoke German to me, it took me a long time to understand what she wanted to say. At least the group was very nice and we got a long well. We got our grades from a continuous evaluation over the whole semester and were all pretty good.

The library is more than small, the sources are limited, the buildings I old and you can clearly smell that. But, it is very bright with big windows and calm, so a got place for studying, if you bring your own sources. Important books and a bigger variety, you can find in the public libraries. In the newer building for economics, they have some really nice and modern studying rooms, which we often use for studying together or preparing presentations.

In general, I had a very good impression of the university and the quality of the education, except of some professors, and felt very welcome at the university. It was a big contrast to Paris and also in some kinds different to Germany. Some of the professors even offered help after the semester had finished and I got to know really nice people in my classes, mostly Erasmus students as we all were in the same situation and many times also met at other events. The Portuguese students were far more open towards us and helping than I was used to from the French students.

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