At the start of 2019 Warwick was invited to nominate two students to attend the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)'s Summer School on Brazilian Studies. After a competitive selection process, Lucia Evans and Will Gennings from Warwick's School of Modern Languages and Cultures were awarded scholarships co-funded by UFMG and Warwick.

Over the course of two weeks Lucia and Will joined 60 peers from 15 countries and 22 world-renowned universities for an academic and cultural experience. Participants were challenged and inspired by some of UFMG's leading academics, who shared their knowledge in lectures covering the underpinnings of Brazilian politics, history, foreign relations, geography, law, economy, arts and culture. The classes were held concurrently with various cultural events such as the UFMG Winter Festival and the Cultural Turn of Belo Horizonte.

Lucia Evans has been keeping a blog of her experiences preparing for the summer school and her first impressions when she got off the plane:

"I am a third-year student and have had an amazing opportunity to take part in a two-week summer school course at UFMG in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais Brazil. So how did I come across this amazing summer school opportunity? It was actually through the university that I heard about it and I applied. The application was quite easy and my Portuguese teacher helped me a lot. It was in fact a scholarship and only 40 people were successful through so I was very lucky to have been picked. This is so good for me to absorb the Brazilian culture and also master understanding of Brazilian Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese sound SO DIFFERENT. My main aim is to become more fluent in Portuguese and I think I will definitely be able to achieve this goal by the end of the two weeks.”

For more information on the programme and on Lucia’s experiences in Brazil, click on the following link:

https://warwick.ac.uk/global/partnerships/news/warwick_students_join