Student review [#27727] for International Relations
at Faculty of Arts and Humanities of University of Porto

The course itself (International Relations) is not bad but it falters when it comes to developed skills and its professors. It is very broad, in the sense that its subjects cover several fields (Economics, Laws, Foreign Languages, History and IR itself) but don’t end up deepening either of them. By the end of the course, one feels as if they haven’t really learned much if anything about international relations at all. For comparison, after a single year of a master’s program, I had a bigger understanding of the field and felt like I had learned considerably more than during my entire bachelor’s. The other major flaw of the course is the teaching staff. After 3 years and having classes with around 20 or more different professors, it’s possible to count on one hand those who effectively were able to motivate the students and demonstrate considerable knowledge and understanding of their respective teaching fields. Many of the remaining was disdainful towards the students and the assignments handed usually consisted in completing certain portions of the staff’s own research investigation for them. All in all, the course suffers due to its broadness and overall lack of quality staff. On the bright side, the mandatory 2 foreign language structure of the course seems to be efficient, with most students ending up being able to speak at least one if not both languages chosen to a considerable degree.