Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Portugal

Here we are. Probably the worst part of my stay abroad. Exam period. I must admit that I have never been so unprepared for an exam period, but I just had to enjoy my stay to the fullest extend and wanted to participate in as many activities as possible. Especially after having been locked inside for so long due to Corona.

I attended three modules at Lisbon, they were called: Portuguese A1, English for Finance and Financial Risk Management. As I had already been fluent in Spanish, the Portuguese module was not too hard for me. Although, Portuguese pronunciation is something quite unique. We had two written exams, one oral exam and our participation in class was graded as well. The maximum was 20 points. The other two modules also had two written exams and a grade for participation. In addition, I had to prepare presentations for each of the classes.

It will be interesting to see my final grades in the German system of FHWS as they have to be converted into the Bavarian grading system first. Unfortunately, the Bavarian grades are a little bit tougher: a 1,0 in Portugal is only worth a 1,3 or even 1,7 in Bavaria. I had to put the most effort in the preparation for Financial Risk Management, as I find topics around Finance and Accounting always a bit harder and I just have to invest more time to get the hang of it all. Luckily, the professor was very helpful and was always there to answer questions. Even if the written exam does not go too well, it is still possible to make up for it with the presentation and participation in class. The first written exam was shorter than the second one and was held after two months during class. The second exam is scheduled for the end of semester and is something like a final exam about the whole semester.

I think that the exams were fair and if you had put a decent amount of preparation into it, it was not too hard to get a good grade in the end. As the university is specialised in accounting and business, they offer a lot of subjects on these topics.