Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Porto Speciality : Economics
programme: Business Economics

My time at Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Porto was overall a fantastic experience. The campus environment, academic structure, and international atmosphere were truly enriching and helped me grow both personally and professionally.

However, I must express my disappointment with the handling of the final exam of my last course. No correction grid or grading criteria was published, and I wasn’t given any opportunity to understand what mistakes I had made. This lack of transparency made it impossible for me to learn from the experience or even understand how I ended up with such an unfairly low grade. It was a frustrating and demotivating way to end an otherwise wonderful semester.

I hope the university improves communication and feedback processes in the future — students deserve to know how and why they are evaluated.

My exchange at Católica Porto Business School was overall a valuable but quite challenging experience.

On the positive side, I really appreciated the international environment and the opportunity to discover a different academic system. Living near Porto was also a great personal experience that helped me become more independent and adaptable.

However, the semester was quite demanding. The workload was heavy, with high expectations across courses and a long semester structure. In my personal case, I also had to deal with long daily commuting, which made the experience more exhausting.

I also found that the level of academic support could be improved. During more stressful periods, especially exams, I sometimes felt a lack of guidance and flexibility, which made certain situations more difficult to manage.

Overall, despite these challenges, this exchange allowed me to grow both academically and personally. I would still recommend it to students who are ready for a demanding but enriching experience.