#UniversityDiary: how does university works in Brazil? #1

UFMT - Federal University of Mato Grosso

#UniversityDiary will be the highlighter that I'll use to write about my experience in college, but first of all, I have to explain the difference between university in U.S. and university in Brazil.

In Brazil, we have public and private universities and we also have college, as in U.S. - in Portuguese college call "curso tecnólogo" or "curso profissionalizante".

The difference between university and college is the same as in U.S., university is more expensive and lasts longer than college, and college "has lower value" because it lasts less.

And speaking about universities, public and private university has A LOT of differences. The first one is that public is free and private is paid. The second one is about the quality. This topic is controversial, I'm already saying.

In Brazil, in recent years there has been a reversal in education. Education isn't a priority of ours politicians, unfortunately, so the public education isn't a reference (in other words, isn't good), BUT as public education has a story in our country (in the past, private universities were discriminated), many people still prefer study in a public university and don't agree that private university is better (despite being). So, as I said, it's a controversial topic because everybody has an opinion and not everybody agrees.

So, to study in a university in Brazil we have to do an exam called "ENEM" or "vestibular" that is like SAT that you have in U.S. (they are two different things. The difference is that ENEM is for public universities and vestibular is for private universities).

So, when we finish senior year we did ENEM and/or vestibular and we choose an course that we want to do. Any course has a minimum points, called "nota de corte" (passing score), who changes from university to university.

ENEM exam

If we achieve the passing score, we will "fight" for a vacancy (because there aren't vacancy for everybody, there are about 40 vacancy for thousand students), and who had the higher score will be in. Who can not, will have to wait one year to try again (in this year he/she will do an preparative course for the exam to try be in. If he can't again, he will still studying and trying till he can). One year, because the exam happens once a year.

Of course this is the worst time of the students life, because it's a time of much stress, pressure, dedication, existential crisis and a lot of questioning of the system - just to you know, students who wants to do medicine school hardly enter in their first attempt, because it's the most competitive course. They study from 3 to 6 years, before they graduate on high school, just to be in the university (this time is a national average of how long students take to get approved in medicine school). They spend 3 to 6 years of their lives just to be in, they didn't even start college yet! After this, they will study more 6 years to graduate. This system is cruel!

So, after you pass all this stress and getting into university, you finally will know what is being in university. But I have to say that the most common thing in Brazil is people don't do the course they want because of the degree of difficulty of the exams. It's sad.

As I said in my biography, I'm not a native English speaker and I created this blog to practice my English, so if I made any mistake, let me know, write on the comments! I want to improve my English, so don't be afraid to correct me, on the contrary, I want to know! Thank you :)