Education

One of the things that Universities work on very hard here is their image. Image is everything, the better they sell the school, the more people will become interested in graduating there, the more people will apply to their programs, the better are the students that get in, who in turn will have more chances of succeeding in the industry afterwards, which in turn will improve the school’s reputation and so on and so forth, in a snow ball effect. Besides their interest in better students is the interest in profit. After all, schools here are real businesses. Their grants, subsidies and partnerships with the industry will depend on their success.

This week, I can see a lot of new students arriving, with their parents, going on a tour of the campus. Older students are the tour guides and they totally sell the school to the newcomers. I could feel by watching some of the newcomers’ faces that they already feel pride of being part of a prestigious school. That made me think on how we receive the freshman in Portuguese Universities. I guess we do the exact opposite, all we do is to have fun and humiliate the newcomers.