This program gives students the opportunity to get practical work experience abroad and to get to know different contexts within their professional training.

Since 2016, the Universidad de La Frontera, through the Faculty of Engineering and Science and the Student Mobility Unit of the International Affairs Office, is constantly working on the coordination of practical training experiences abroad for their students, in alliance with Temuco UniverCiudad, an institution that is cooperating with the International Association for Student Exchange for Practical Experience (IAESTE).

This cooperation that comes together in an initiative called FICA IAESTE promotes international student mobility experiences, giving the students of this institution the chance to do their practical training abroad.

This is how the UFRO sends its future professionals to other countries and also receives a large number of students from other nations in order to do their practical training at our institution.

RECEPTION

In this context, and making use of the visit of Bernard Baeyens, the IAESTE president, the coordination office for practical training of the Faculty of Engineering and Science, which is directed by Gabriela Reyes, organized a meeting of fellowship in order to welcome the five foreign students that now are at the UFRO within this program: Diana Rentería from Mexico, Kourtnie Ruber from the United States, Gabriel Brandao from Brazil, Vit Ruzicka from the Czech Republic and Taiga Inoue from Japan.

The participants in this meeting space were Juan Möller, the director of Undergraduate Affairs of the Faculty of Engineering and Science, together with Antonia Espinoza, who is in charge of the UFRO Student Mobility Unit, Valentina Carrasco, the coordinator of the IAESTE program in Chile, and also the academics who are going to participate as the students´ employees and host families.

“From what I´ve seen, this program responds a little to the concerns of teachers, directives and students, what makes me very happy, because I can see that it works, that there is an interest in giving stability to the program in the future,” Bernard Baeyens pointed out and added that the idea is to strengthen the work that is being done in Temuco through IAESTE, for later extending it to the rest of Chile.

Regarding the multicultural experience this kind of programs offer, Bernard Beayens has no doubt when he says: “The idea is precisely to make the people get used to facing a new culture, because I think that, the less you know something, the more you´ll learn.”

Having this in mind, the married couple of the two academics Dr. Carlos Muñoz and Dr. Sonia Salvo decided to receive Kourtnie Ruber, a student from the United States, at their home for a period of four months. They describe this experience as very enriching, especially for their daughters.

“We have two daughters, a nine year old and an eleven year old. They were very anxious to get to know Kourtnie, not only for learning more English, but also for getting to know a different culture, and, considering that we are planning to go to the United States for some time, this allows us to prepare our daughters in a better way. This is why we really appreciate this opportunity,” Dr. Muñoz explained.

VISIT

Within the visit of the IAESTE president, Gabriela Reyes, who is in charge of the FICA IAESTE practical training program, together with Antonia Espinoza, who is in charge of the UFRO Student Mobility Unit, presented the experiences since the implementation of this initiative in a forum that has been held in the Amor de Chile Hall, an activity in which also foreign and UFRO students, who have had the possibility to do a practical training outside of their home countries, participated.

“As a faculty, we are very happy, because we are increasingly consolidating and strengthening a program we have been working on since 2016, with the support of the Macro Faculty of Engineering and the Student Mobility Unit, but we want that the number of foreign students grows each time more. Therefore, I invite the academics to be part of the program, as host families or as employees, accepting students in their fields of work for their practical training in 2019 and, this way, contributing to internationalization, which is one of our main strategies,” Gabriela Reyes pointed out.

Finally, it is worth saying that, now, two students of this faculty are doing their practical training abroad: Nicolás Oyarzún in Colombia and Samuel Rilling in Germany; an experience that also awaits Camilo Cuevas, who is going to travel to Germany next December.

Written by: Daphne Bormann
Faculty of Engineering and Science