The exchange students who join our undergraduate Programs are from Germany, Belgium, Bolivia, Colombia, Spain, France, Mexico and Peru.

Following a clear line of internationalization, the International Affairs Office and the Student Mobility Unit of the Universidad de La Frontera welcomed 38 national and international students who join our undergraduate Programs this year.

The vice Rector, Dr. Ruben Leal, the vice rector of Undergraduate Affairs, MSc. Ana Moraga Pumarino, and the deans and directors of Outreach of each faculty participated in the welcome ceremony for the new students who will stay during this academic semester at the UFRO.

“At this University you will find a University Community which is happy to help, receive and incorporate you. Our academic staff and employees are willing to orient you and make your stay as successful as possible, and it would be the most successful if, after your experience, you convert into ambassadors of our Institution,” the vice Rector, Dr. Ruben Leal, said.
In order to make the integration process easier, the UFRO International Affairs Office created a Sponsor Program with a network of young collaborative students of the different undergraduate programs who voluntarily help the new students with guidance.

The director of the Student Mobility Office, Antonia Espinoza, said that this institutional effort has brought a total of 430 students to our University since 2010 and that it has been possible thanks to the different International Cooperation Agreements that facilitate the academic student exchange.

“This first semester we have 38 students who just came to the UFRO and one student who came here last year. That makes a total of 39 foreign students and for us, the International Affairs Office, it is very important to start this internationalization process at home, since it permits our students to share experiences with them in class, to expand their horizons and to motivate them to live these experiences themselves.”

	Patricia Santos, National Autonomous University of Mexico “I wanted to come to the Universidad de La Frontera and to Chile, especially because of the beautiful nature and the climate, and to this Institution because I will have the possibility to get to know other people, cultures and other kind of knowledge. Apart from that, I will be able to apply what I learned at my university and in my public accounting classes.”
	Julien Pinchon, Polytechnical Institute Unisalle, France “I wanted to come to Latin America and then I thought about Chile, because I speak a little bit of Spanish and my university has a Cooperation Agreement with the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science. This is why I am going to take different classes in Agronomy and I have high expectations about what I can achieve and apply in this period of studies.”
	Samuel Jiménez, CES University, Colombia “I had two possibilities to choose from: the USA or Chile. And I ended up applying to the UFRO Dentistry Program, mainly expecting to be able to get to know a wide range of practices and the other students and to have a good relationship with the patients; and to this country, because of the culture and the green areas, since I am interested in my professional training, but also in my personal development, so which would be a better option than going to the south, where I can find more nature and get connected with it.”

At the beginning of the academic year 2018, students of the Faculty of Engineering and Science of the Universidad de La Frontera got to know the opportunities the FICA-IAESTE program offers for students who want to spend their practical training period abroad.

In a workshop the students were able to get to know the implications and benefits of this initiative which is a collaboration between the Faculty of Engineering and Science (FICA) and the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE).

Germany, Colombia, Spain, Brazil, India and other countries are the destinations our students can travel to within this program. It is made for future professionals who are motivated to improve their academic training, to grow as a person and to visualize the options the labor market offers.

In that spirit, the IAESTE-Chile coordinator, Valentina Carrasco, shared information about the processes, requirements, financing and the application deadlines with them. Apart from that, Jorge Barra, a Civil Industrial Engineering student with specialization in Mechanics, was present to tell the students about his practical training experience in Panama.

For more information about this program that counts with the support of the Practical Training Management Unit of the UFRO Faculty of Engineering and Science, the UFRO Student Mobility Office, the Macro Faculty of Engineering and Temuco UniverCiudad, please send an email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the Faceboook page: IAESTEChile. If you want to get to know the available offer, please click on: http://fica.ufro.cl/practicas-de-estudio/?5=$6#-6.

It has been ten years since the Universidad de La Frontera started the formal activities of its Master´s Program in Medical Physics, which is the first one in this field in Chile.

As a pioneer in the training of medical physicists in research and the clinical field, the UFRO was able to consolidate a work group that has gone beyond the borders of our region and country, promoting research that promotes the application of physics in the medical field in order to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases.

In a ceremony that brought university authorities, academic staff, students and graduates together, the Program director, Dr. Marcia García, showed a presentation about what marked the development of this Master´s Program the most and which achievements have consolidated this idea that goes back to 2005.

This is how a committed group of the Department of Physical Sciences of the UFRO Faculty of Engineering and Science with the backup of the Faculty of Medicine achieved to create a Program that recently has been reaccredited for a period of five years.

MANAGEMENT

The search of excellence implied the signature of four international collaboration agreements and other five with institutions and centers in Chile, apart from other bilateral links with research groups with which an important collaboration could be established related to the clinical and professional training of the students and in the field of scientific and technological development, through the participation in different research projects and getting several projects awarded.

More than 60 scientific publications and more that 100 participations in congresses in Chile and abroad are part of the work that has been done within the Master´s Program. This also includes the organization of events, such as the Medical Physics Day at La Frontera, which will be in its sixth version this year, from November 4th to 6th, 2018, in Pucón, Chile.

Other things that marked this Program since its start are the creation of the UFRO Center of Medical Physics and Engineering (CFIM) in 2016, where physicists, engineers and other professionals bring their knowledge together for the development of innovative solutions of high impact in the field of medicine in our region, the country and abroad, and the active participation of academic staff and graduates of the Program in the constitution of the Medical Physics Society in Chile (SOFIMECH) in 2014.

It is also important to say that 27 students graduated from the Program since its beginning, among them Mg. José Velásquez, who entered the Program just after finishing his Bachelor´s Degree in Computer Engineering, and who graduated from it in 2013. “I always wanted to go beyond the field of engineering. This is why I wanted to keep studying in a postgraduate Program in applied engineering or physics, just when this Master´s Program started – a Program that opened a lot of doors for me and changed my professional career plan”, said the professional who works at the Institute of Clinical Oncology in Temuco and in University teaching.

Since this anniversary has been celebrated at the beginning of the academic year, the Master in Medical Physics also presented the student cohort 2018, which consists of six professionals. Fabiola Avello, a medical technologist at the Regional Hospital of Concepción, Chile, is one of them. About this new academic experience she said that she needed more tools as a professional for being able to develop herself, and the UFRO Program seemed very attractive for her, because it gave her everything she wanted to find in one single place and that helps her to move forward in the professional area.

With the start of the academic year and the commitment to keep being a leader in the training of medical physicists at the national and international level, this Master´s Program is already visualizing future challenges: the creation of a doctoral program in medical physics and the recognition of this discipline as a research field of physics by the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT).

During his recent research trip to Europe, the director of the Doctorate in Communication, Dr. Carlos Del Valle, created important alliances with universities in the UK, the Netherlands and Spain.

The partnership with the University of Groningen in the Netherlands is one of the most important alliances of the Doctorate in Communication. This link made it possible that five academic staff members are going to be part of the program as visiting lecturers and as co-directors in the doctoral theses.

“The most important fact of this cooperation is that we initiated the formalization process for Double Degrees at both Universities for the Doctorate”, he said.

In addition to that, the Universidad de La Frontera also just started alliances with the two most important Doctoral Programs in Communication in Argentina. The first one with the Faculty of Journalism and Social Communication at the Universidad de La Plata and the second one with the Faculty of Communication Science at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. These alliances will make the exchange of teachers and students possible, especially during the thesis elaboration and for joint work in teaching.

At the same time, it has other important Cooperation Agreements oriented to the specific field of Communication and Cultural Studies, such as the International Center for Advanced Studies in Communication for Latin America (CIESPAL); the Department of Journalism at the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain; the Department of Communication and Information Science at the University of Porto, Portugal; the Institute of Language and Communication Science at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland; the Faculty of Political Science, Sociology and Communication at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; and the Scientific-Academic International Cooperation Network, Red INTER-ES, which is led by the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.

In addition to that, it has relationships with the most important academic organizations in the field of communication at the Latin-American level, such as the Latin-American Association of Researchers in Communications (ALAIC), the Latin Union for Political Economics of Information, Communication and Culture (ULEPICC) and the Latin-American Confederation of Scientific and Academic Associations in Communication (CONFIBERCOM).

PURPOSE

The objective of the Doctorate in Communication is to train high-level researchers who contribute to innovative solutions to communicational and cultural problems with an interdisciplinary focus. This is why the first Doctorate in Communication was created between the two most important universities in the south of Chile.

RESEARCH FELLOW

The new distinction of Dr. Carlos del Valle is Research Fellow at the Department of European Languages and Cultures of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. During his trip, he taught students of the specialties Language and Society, Culture and Literature, and Politics and Society. He also participated as a lecturer in the Winter School of the University of Groningen. He held the conference called: “Critique to the Civilizing Project at Southern America: Modes and strategies for the production and subjection of the other”, within the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Project financed by the European Union. The activity was made for researchers and students of universities in Europe, Asia and the USA.

Afterwards, he held a conference at the Newcastle University, UK, addressed to different researchers of the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Two of the academic staff members joint the team as co-directors of future students´ theses to start with.

FOUNDATION PROGRAM

The Doctorate in Communication of the UFRO is a founding partner of the Network for Foresight Postgraduate Studies in Communication in Latin America. The purpose of this network is to create strengthening actions for postgraduate programs in communication, especially doctoral programs, at Latin American universities.