Details

• Brazil
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 5 months

1. Preparation

Read through the academic requirements, language requirements, and also read through documents of the application process. It's not too complicated, but you need to know some things. Also, talk to your peers about important dates and application deadlines, and you will be fine. Regarding your semester abroad, maybe watch some videos about the city or read an article, ask friends about the city if they already visited, or just watch some locals on YouTube walking through the city. Make yourself familiar with the city you are planning to go to.

2. Accommodation

The main option for housing was the provided option by the university which is called ULiving. It's a shared student living with lots of locals and also lots of exchange students. Most of the exchange students went there and had a really good time. It's pretty crowded and it's also not cheap, but you have a lot of people around you and you definitely won't miss the next party. For my case, I had a friend of mine who also did an exchange there from another university, so we paired up and rented an Airbnb over the duration of five months. I had a guy from São Paulo, so I was able to check the neighborhood beforehand. It turned out to be a really safe and friendly neighborhood. It was a great Airbnb and it was definitely cheaper. But I would definitely recommend asking someone that knows which areas are safer and which are not before booking something. We both preferred the Airbnb but I would say in general the student housing is the safe call.

3. Academic life at host university

it takes a day or two until you get familiar with the campus as it is in the center of the city and not a usual shot of campus like WU. But it's really easy to navigate through the buildings, and also to get there. The infrastructure is pretty good. The teaching styles and academic culture is, of course, a bit different, but in general, I would say it's definitely easy to adapt to. The courses aren't too hard compared to WU. Also, regarding the classmates, there are loads of group projects and in-class presentations or smaller midterms. It's not that exam-heavy. They offer loads of great courses in various topics, so you will definitely find something interesting for yourself there.

5. Every day life in the host country

I loved the busy life in São Paulo. It was definitely different because it's a huge city but also really fun. The uni wasn't as occupying as in Austria, so normally you had two to three days of uni a week. Most of the time you went to uni by bus or by Uber, which isn't that expensive there. It's still cheaper to go by bus, and if you have a direct connection, it's also really easy and safe. On the weekends, for example, you most of the time take Ubers. In São Paulo, the life is a lot around studying and also discovering stuff. On the weekends, you can go to loads of parties, but also due to the not-heavy uni schedule, you were able to travel quite a lot which was quite nice. São Paulo is really nice and you can see loads of things, but it's more of a city you can live in and not visit as a tourist. There are some highlights, but more the general life is a highlight, and from São Paulo you can do loads of great trips into many destinations which was really great. Also, there are plenty of sport options and events, and also many activities you can visit from uni, from normal people from the public in general, so it won't get boring in São Paulo as there is a lot of culture.

6. Testimonial

Brazil is a great country with an awesome culture. Not only the culture itself, but also the exchange students and exchange of different cultures while traveling make it a great destination for doing a semester abroad.