NOTÍCIAS

With the expansion of international partnerships, we reinforce our commitment to our students’ internationalization and careers

At the beginning of his Professional Masters in Business Administration at Insper, Cristiano Flores e Silva could not imagine how many positive experiences this decision would bring. When he started his academic career in 2015, he was sure of one thing: his study program should include an international experience.

At the very beginning, Flores e Silva chose to pursue a dual degree at Nova School of Business in Economics, in Lisbon, Portugal.

Since the creation of Insper’s exchange program, many students, like Silva, have already participated in international exchanges. They depart for new experiences in one of the 28 different countries where our 86 agreements are located.

Through our internationalization policy, with an emphasis on exchange programs, we encourage students to have an international experience not only to live in other cultures but also to improve the curriculum and seek personal growth. “The international exchange program at Insper is more than hosting foreign students and sending Brazilian students abroad. Our program is part of a broader project aimed at infusing international perspectives into all aspects of academic life. Therefore, year by year we are extending our partnerships with international schools and providing our students with experiences in the most reputed institutions”, highlights Monica Pinhanez,  Associate Dean of International Relations at Insper.

Silva enjoyed the experience so much that in March 2016 he signed up for a certificate program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at the Logistics and Transportation Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s School of Engineering. At the MIT, his master’s thesis “Operações Logísticas dentro das Favelas Brasileiras” (Logistics Operations within Brazilian Slums) was a topic of interest to several international researchers. They encouraged him to apply for MIT Portugal’s doctoral program, a collaborative partnership among universities that is fostered by the country’s Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, for its acronym in Portuguese).

“Insper has been instrumental in opening the ways for me. With the school’s support, I built my academic-professional path and intend to keep on studying companies’ real-life problems, assisting them with an academic consulting”, highlights Silva.

Internship in Switzerland

The lawyer Marcelle Silbiger was looking for a program with a syllabus that enabled the balance between practical teaching and theory. Therefore, in 2017 she joined Insper for the LL.M. in Tax Law. With the exchange program, she achieved what she sought after. Marcelle got a scholarship from the Lemann Foundation, an Insper partner, for the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland.

After four months in the program, the lawyer obtained an internship at a law firm in Zurich and was able to extend her stay in Switzerland to improve her curriculum even more.

“It was one of the best experiences of my life. In addition to personal development, I was able to improve professionally, opting for subjects that gave me a more complete view of issues such as corporate law and compliance”, she highlights.

A two-way street

André Antunes Soares de Camargo, a professor at Insper, was able to experience the dual experience of participating in an exchange as a professor and as a student in early May. He was hired by the Department of Law and Economics of the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, to teach Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets and Entrepreneurship Law, for three months. During that time, he took the opportunity to carry out his postdoctoral studies.

For Camargo, three aspects marked his international experience as a professor: the adaptation to a different environment, regarding culture and structure; the experience of teaching international students, and in another language; and the most challenging one, which is to return home without prejudices or critical bias regarding both educational environments.

“The environment of an international school is very heterogeneous, with students from different cultures and unique desires. There are subjects not so well-developed here or there, and it is important to respect those differences,” he analyzes.

As a student, he explains that he always liked the fields of Governance, Entrepreneurship, and Law and wanted to materialize his knowledge in these subjects through writing a book. “During the three months I spent in Switzerland, I finally managed to end this academic cycle by giving back to my students everything they taught me throughout my teaching career,” he says. His book, Aspectos Jurídicos no Ambiente Empresarial Brasileiro (Legal Aspects in the Brazilian Entrepreneurial Environment), was launched in June by  Insper Almedina collection and describes how the business environment operates, from a legal point of view to people not specialized in Law.

If you would like to receive more information about the exchange programs and partnershipss from Insper, please send an email message to international@insper.edu.br.