Testemunho do bolseiro Fulbright Miguel Torres após participação no Fulbright Gateway Orientation, uma atividade que fornece aos Fulbrighters recursos e estratégias para a transição para a vida académica e cultural dos EUA. Cada Fulbright Gateway Orientation é projetada para ajudar os Fulbrighters a maximizar a sua experiência de intercâmbio através de uma combinação de apresentações interativas, workshops, atividades de networking e culturais. Miguel Torres irá realizar um programa de doutoramento em Chemical Engineering na Universidade do Texas em Austin.

 

«Before starting my PhD at the University of Texas at Austin I was invited to attend a Fulbright enrichment program, specifically a Gateway Orientation at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The premise of the program is that Fulbrighters from all over the world get together for 5 days and get to know each other and a bit of the American culture before heading out to their new homes. My expectations were that it was going to be very informative, but I didn’t expect to make such good friends over only 5 days! The truth is that, although the fields of study of the attendees are very different, the feeling of being far from home with a mission to accomplish is ubiquitous amongst all of them, which brings down barriers and facilitates the connection between people that just a couple days before did not even know each other. Out of everything we did during the orientation, I’d say the most interesting talk was a panel with 2nd and 3rd year Fulbrighters, with people as diverse as a Computer Science major working for Ernst & Young in New York to a student of Psychology at Columbia University. This panel was able to give us an idea of where we could be in a couple years time, and will be on our minds by then. Out of all the activities we did, the best was definitely the self-guided trip to New York, which was peppered with a little drizzle, making for a truly magical moment for most of us, which had never even been to the US before. Also, it was awesome to witness the first ever train trip of José, a Fulbrighter from Equador!»

Miguel Torres, setembro de 2019

 

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