Type of housing: Apartment/House

Arranged by: Host university

If returning, I would choose: Apartment/House

Why?

Personal comments:
The university doesn`t have its own campus. Nevertheless before coming to Brazil they send to all prospect exchange students information about everything (courses, Brazil, etc) - among others they give you the full list of possible housing. You can choose from living with other Brazilian students (have your own room in their apartment), you can rent the whole apartment (but usually you do this with other exchange students and you share with them the apartment), you can live with a Brazilian family or you can stay in a hotel. The number of places to each of these categories is given you by FGV. After receiving this list you have to arrange the place for you by yourself - I mean you have to contact by yourself places you are interested in (usually by e-mail) and make a deal. It`s really easy cause majority of owners of those places speak English (so don`t worry if you don`t speak Portuguese). I paid for my stay R$ (reais) 300 but it was very cheap cause I shared a room with my friend. We rented the whole apartment for R$1050 monthly (additionally we had to pay all the bills - around R$70 monthly in total). One room was for an exchange student form Holland (she paid R$480) and the second one for me and my friend (so each of us paid R$285). As far as I know other exchange student usually had their own rooms which they pay from R$400 to R$800 for (it depended on location, facilities, things included in the price like cleaning lady and frequency of her visits). International Relations Office may help you in finding a roommate (if you have problems with this). You have to write to them and tell them that e.g. you have a free room in the apartment and than they`ll send e-mail to all other exchange student with a question whether anybody needs a room cause you have one bla bla bla.

Describe host city: Students interact with the local community without much university involvement

Travel: Takes place mostly outside the university/student environment

Activities, Nightlife: Takes place both within and outside of the university/student environment

Personal comments:
It depends on kind of music you like. I like dance, techno, house, pop. So: 1) Ibiza - 4 kinds of music (dance&techno, pop, black music, chill-out), very good 2) LOV.E - techno, drum`n`base, good 3) Manga Rosa - techno, good 4) Liquid Lounge - house, ok (place better than music) 5) Marcenaria - black music, ok 6) Maeva - dance, pop, good 7) AMP Galaxy - techno, I`ve never been there but I heard it`s good 8) Love Story - FOR BOYS! ;-), go there late at night (after 2-3 a.m.) 9)A Loca - various music, it`s GLS club (gay, lesbians and symphatizants), very close to FGV, it was one of our (exchange students) favorite place There are plenty of other places - nightlife in SP is as good as in NY or London. Ask Brazilians at FGV - they know the best where to go. Apart from this FGV organizes a lot of great parties> You cannot miss Giovanna and Gioconda (once every half a year). Cervejadas are also good. You`ll find out everything when you start studying there.

Course recommendations:
As everywhere - there`re great classes as well as bad. So it depends on the teacher and your interests. I think it`s very subjective. The choice of courses IN ENGLISH is rather limited (so that`s why I put low grade for this). But if you speak Portuguese then you have great variety of courses! I took: 1) Politics and Culture in Brazil (prof. Jose Carlos Garcia Durand) - good course (good to know at least a little bit of the country; the prof. uses a lot of DVDs and films; a prof. is a bit chaotic; the course is not hard to pass; you will have midterm exam and than final exam) 2) Managing People Managing Psychological Proccesses (prof. Sigmar Malvezzi) - course ok (you have to write 2-3 papers during the course and than 1 disertation and the final exam so there`s a bit of work; I really didn`t understand fully the subject of the course) 3) The Dynamics of Brazilian BUsiness (prof. Vicky Jones) - very good course; prof. Jones is great; you`ll learn a lot about the contry; there`re a lot of guest speakers (sometimes good, sometimes bad); pretty much of work (5 papers during the semester, 1 group project, final exam) 4) Branding (prof. Paulo Standerski) - very good course; prof. Standerski is really good and in the topic; you`ll use a lot of cases during the class; workload (4 summaries of the cases, 1 group project + presentation, final exam)

Personal comments:
none

Language of instruction: English

Main source of funding:
Family

Other sources of funding:
Personal savings

Work opportunities:
I didn't explore any work options

Personal spending habits:
Prices in Poland are comprable to those in Brazil. But for many exchange students Brazil was as cheap as water. Of course you`ll spend more on nightlife and travel as you`ll do it more often than at home. But the prices are ok.

Travel, Nightlife: was more expensive than at home.

Food, Overall: was the same price as at home.

Telephone, Housing: was less expensive than at home.

I wish I had known...
1) Portuguese language 2) that Brazil and Sao Paulo (or the part of the city you`ll stay in - Bela Vista, Jardim Paulisa cause both are close to FGV) are not dangerous. I was really afraid of going there due to violence level but nothing really bad happened to me and the majority of echange students. Of course you have to be careful but it wasn`t so bad as I expected.

In my opinion:
Everybody loved it, you will too!