Studying in a different country definitely has a lot of challenges in regards to adapting to a new lifestyle and adjusting to new teaching methods.
A new university means new teaching methods
For us who freshly landed in Porto over the last week, a meeting had been planned with Sandra Rua, head professor of the EMMaH program in Porto, and Rosalia Fonte, the international coordinator in IPP at the Escola Superior de Saude, on the 18th of February. Throughout this very warm and welcoming meeting, we got the chance to introduce ourselves and to discover this outstanding institute building.
Our initial opinion on Portuguese people being immensely helpful and generous was confirmed again during this first day at the university with students helping us to find our classrooms and explaining the canteen and cafeteria systems. Furthermore, we were surprised by the fluency of Portuguese professors and students in English, and sometimes in French, due to close historical ties between France and Portugal.
After a brief introduction about the program and a short presentation of the city by Rosalia, Sandra continued with the schedule presentation, revealing a three day university week from Tuesday to Thursday excluding some external hospital visits. Needless to say that our weekly programs will not be overwhelmed with commutes to the university, but rather exploration of the city and nights out thanks to this very light timetable.
The mentioned courses are the following:
- Project Seminar in Health
- MITD – Medical Imaging Technologies and Devices
- MMT – Medical Measurement Techniques
- ACI – Applied Clinical Imaging
- ACS – Applied Clinical Signals
- HUMAN TECH – Human-Technology Interaction on Clinical Environment
Most of our professors in IPP are healthcare professionals and engineers, which gives us clear and practical insights of the clinical environment we will be evolving in for the next few months during this semester.
For each course, the opportunity is given to us to choose either continuous assessment throughout the semester, which usually means oral presentations, poster deliveries and short quizzes, or final exams at the end of June. However, Sandra recommended us to choose the continuous assessment which will supposedly enable us to prepare in an easier way for each assessed presentations, posters and exams.
Contrary to the setup at HAW in Hamburg, where we shared classes with students from the Biomedical Engineering Masters, each and every course in IPP will be given to only EMMaH students; we can almost say that a classroom is reserved for us, as most of the lectures are given in the same “radiology” room.
Luckily, we also have access to many laboratories, in which we can perform tests and learn how to use certain devices, which can also be useful for some of our research cases and presentations. In addition, a library is also operative if needed during the week. Sandra can also provide us with access to our usual classroom during the weekend if we need to find a quiet place to study or work on our group projects. As a general observation, it can easily be said that professors are quite flexible and open to new ideas concerning our group projects and course assessment. They appeared to be very positive and excited for this new semester, as we all are.
A new city means different lifestyle
As newbies in the city of Porto, we can only appreciate the amount of vitamin D we’ve been blessed with for the past week with such good weather. Explorations of the historical city center and tasting of local food and pastries were also huge highlights of this week. We found out that supermarket and grocery store prices are not so expensive, as well as restaurants and bars. On the picture below, you can see our beloved Pastéis de Nata, which accompanies pretty much all of our breaks between classes. This is definitely a local pastry you shoud try when coming to Portugal.
Moreover, Uber is also very convenient to go around the city – it was shamely not available in Hamburg 😦 – and is very cheap (3€ to go to the city center if you live 30 minutes away by foot).
Below are a few charming cafés, bars and restaurants we discovered this week:
- Zenith Brunch & Cocktails, located in the city center to have a delightful breakfast. Praça Carlos Alberto nº 86. www.zenithcaffe.pt/en
- Bird of Passage Coffee, to stop for a nice iced coffee. Rua do Duque de Loulé n° 185-187. www.birdofpassagecoffee.com
- Erasmus bar, for cheap drinks and nice conversations with people from all over the world. Rua Jose falcao n° 14.
https://www.facebook.com/Erasmus-Bar-292855357791291/ - Brasão Cervejaria Coliseu Baixa, located in the city center with delicious dinner.
R. de Passos Manuel 205. https://brasao.pt/en/
Continuing our daily expeditions in this city, we will keep you posted on our further opinions and experiences here in Porto throughout the next weeks. Meanwhile, don’t forget to support us on our social media platforms:
- Instagram: @emmah.european_master
- Facebook: @EMMaH1master3countries
See you guys next Sunday! Cheers!
EMMaH 