In September, Univates and Universidad del Pacifico (Upacifico), from Chile, celebrate 15 years of a cooperation agreement for exchange of students and teachers. The agreement was commencement of the internationalisation process in both universities.

According to Viviane Bischoff, manager of the International Relations Office, UPacifico was the first university Univates had an exchange agreement with. According to the terms of the agreement, currently, students in all courses in both universities may participate in the exchange programme. We have been working to increase mobility, by providing short-term courses.

Pablo Ortúzar, International Relations director at UPacifico says the partnership between the two institutions began in January 2000 and it has been a fruitful relationship. “The partnership with Univates was one of the first Universidad del Pacifico established with overseas universities” – says he. According to Ortúzar five Chilean students have benefited from studying at Univates, not to mention regular visits to maintain good relationships.

Currently, one of the most important outcomes of this partnership is the Specialisation Graduate Course in Branding and Business at Univates taught by Chilen Professor Sebastian Goldsack Trebilcock, director of the School of Marketing at Upacifico. In 2015, a group of graduate students visited the Chilean institution during a study trip.

 

An experience for life

Alessandro Dreyer studied Advertising and Marketing at Univates and was one of the first exchange students bound for UPacifico. See what he said about his time abroad.

“Having studied at UPacifico was an unforgettable experience, responsible for completely changing my goals. I was only 21, in my 4 th or 5 th semester at Univates and I left Estrela to live in a city like Santiago, which had an estimated population of five million inhabitants in 2004. That was the greatest semester of my like. I was a totally different and surely better person when I returned.

I spent six months in Chile, getting in touch with a new culture, a new language and new teaching practices that were completely different to what we have in Brazil. All of this have contributed to my personal and professional growth. As for my personal life, I learnt to live with a completely new culture, beliefs and values. Now I see how much this has contributed to my professional growth and has made my communication with professionals of different areas or countries easier, not to mention I have lost the fear of new challenges. As soon as I returned from the exchange, I got an offer for a job from Grupo RBS in Porto Alegre, which I instantly accepted without any fear of the new city or the new experience. Six years later, I was offered a position at Microsoft in São Paulo. In 2014, a new opportunity: an offer to live in Paris, which I obviously accepted, and again, living in a different city was a big motivation. Those six months in Chile were unforgettable and they’ve hit me in such a way that since then, living in different cities and knowing new cultures has been a constant desire.

On top of that, I cannot forget the friends. I met people in Chile that are currently like family. I still get in touch with many friends, so sometimes we visit each other. In 2014, when I was still living in São Paulo, I put up eight friends from Chile in my flat. They had come to watch the Chilean Football Team play in the World Cup. This experience is irreplaceable.”

 

Author: Nicole Morás