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Francisco Mejías and Eduardo Salas of the Agronomy Program and Gastón Sepúlveda of the Doctorate in Agri-food Sciences and Environment at UFRO will spend a semester at KU Leuven in Belgium, starting in September. |
The Project of Institutional Strengthening of the State Universities is financed by the Chilean Ministry of Education and provides an important international mobility initiative that allows students of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) to spend a semester at KU Leuven in Belgium. “We know how important this experience is for our students’ academic career, as well as for their personal life. This is the beginning of our international mobility program and we hope to be able to add more opportunities to study abroad,” commented Dr. Adison Altamirano, the dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science at UFRO. The internship program includes the basic expenses for a stay in Belgium for one semester, the flight tickets, as well as an English course with a special focus on this international mobility program, organized by the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science. THE STUDENTS Francisco Mejías and Eduardo Salas of the Agronomy Program and Gastón Sepúlveda of the Doctorate in Agri-food Sciences and Environment at UFRO are the first beneficiaries of this internship program, an initiative that will hopefully allow more undergraduate and graduate students to spend a semester abroad in the future. Francisco Mejías studies Agronomy and is very happy about this opportunity, which, according to him, is key in his professional training. “I will be able to learn new techniques before I graduate and I hope that other students of the different programs at my university will also get such a great opportunity to study at a prestigious university such as KU Leuven. I am also very grateful for all the support of my family, friends and tutors who helped me to take this chance and to go to Belgium at the end of the year,” he said. His fellow student, Eduardo Salas, also feels that this experience will be challenging and enriching at the same time. “The possibility to develop myself in a foreign country, socially and academically, is a unique experience that will expand my horizons and which I will benefit from for the rest of my life,” he explained. Gastón Sepúlveda is a student of the Doctorate in Agri-food Sciences and Environment at UFRO. He explained that this benefit will allow him to make important progress with his research. “This opportunity is very important for me, since I will be able to get to know another reality after such a long time with curfews because of the pandemic. That will also give me new impulses regarding my doctoral thesis. And I found a professor at KU Leuven with whom I can expand my knowledge and explore new areas in my field of work,” he added. Written by: Valentina Duarte Sánchez s |
