martes, 25 de noviembre de 2008

Impressions from a UVIGO student (Spain)

At this moment, there are three UVIGO students in MAMK university, so each of us can explain his/her own opinions about the differences between our home institution and the receiving one, but I think that this are the main points for every one.

As the UMA student said in other post, the reasons for going abroad are long and every person is who really knows their own motivation for becoming an ERASMUS student. In my case, there are only three main reasons:

-Pass the difficult courses of my home institution.

-Improve my English level.

-Start a new life far away from my house, parents, friends and check how can I survive alone in a foreign country with people from all countries in Europe, in other words: COEXISTENCE !!

esei

UVIGO UNIVERSITY, Ourense (Spain)




  • Fields of studies


When I star to compare both universities, first of all I have to explain that in my campus, you will not study IT or Telecommunications (as its known in Spain the IT degree) our field of studies is Computer Engineering so don´t expect anything related with mobile telecommunications, radio waves or antennas... (at least in the tecnical degree which is 3 years length).

Instead of that, you will have lots of courses connected with programming enviroments (java, C++, C, C#, php, ajax...), network world, operating systems, designing and testing your own programmes, how to make the correct documentation of you software (all during the three years and specially in the last one) mixed with business fields like maths (in the first year), statistical methods (during the first and the secon year) and accounting (the second year).

  • EEES


Nowadays, our home institution is trying so hard to adapt to the EEES, changing the old fashion and boringpolitecnicoou1 way of teaching; with the lecturer sitting on the chair and reading the book or the notes he has where you have to study all the material two or three weeks before the final exam by heart, with the new and more dynamic European appearance, with online exams, practical issues, assigments...

Of course we have all the courses with the ECTS credits correspondence, but it depends on the lecturer the decision of making it more "European" or "traditional".

  • Courses


We have a large number of different courses avaliable and practically related with all fields of Computer Engineering. As I mentioned before (and all in ECTS credits): prgramming, designing, testing sotware, networks world, electronics, artificial inteligente, robotics, web page designing, animations, accounting...The level of the courses compared with MAMK is normally higher but if you work a little bit every day and ask the teachers issues you don´t know is easy to have a satisfactory end of period.

Usually you have theory lessons in the morning (about one or two hours each, and every morning 2 different courses more less), practical in the afternoon (2 hours each and 1 per afternoon) and free day on friday, which is important because the student nigth is on thursdays ;)

Important: the languages which most of the teachers usually use for communicate are Spanish or Galego,  I don't  know if for ERASMUS students there are available courses only in English, you should ask the ERASMUS coordinator.


And the examns...it depends...most of the courses have a theory and practical exam at the end or you have to do small exams during the period. The resist exams are in september or december, at the end of the academic year.


  • Lecturers


All our lecturer staff is young and sometimes you can see them on thursday nigths having fun like and even more than the students they teach on the same morning...most of them know english and you can communicate more less like you do with your partners if you have something to ask..but don´t mistake yourselves: they are lecturers and as lecturers they have the control, you have to respect them.

Our ERASMUS coordinator is a good fount of information if you have some trouble or you need help, because he can speak many languajes (spanish, german, english bilingual and som french and portuguese) but he´s always a little bit bussy.

  • Campus life


esei8001UVIGO is a full of life place to study an live!!people from all the parts of Galicia and also ERASMUS students are there to help you in what you need and making new friends is easy if you are not shy. Living expenses are cheaper if you share a flat with other students than in a students residence and as far as I know the university doesn´t provide you help to find accomodation, ERASMUS organization is which helps you.

In summary, courses are different, way of teaching is different, chances of finding accomodation are different and the amount of ECTS credits you get for every course is higher in Ourense but not complicated so if you really want to come to Spain and know a different culture from the rest of Europe here it is the link to our university:

http://www.ei.uvigo.es

or

http://www.esei.uvigo.es

the info of our ERASMUS coordinator:
E-mail: formella@ei.uvigo.es
Phone: +34988387030

and if yo need information about paperwork and formalities directly to the International Organization:

E-mail: ori@uvigo.es

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