On our third day in São Paulo, we went to visit the university PUC-SP (The Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo) and began our case presentation with the Brazilian students there. A teacher and some PUC students showed us around the campus. They first took us to the theater of the university which had a lot of burn marks. The university was burnt down twice from the military dictatorship in the 1980s and those marks were left over. At the end of the tour, we saw the Cross Patio in the middle of the campus.
Afte a brief tour, we walked to the classroom building to have a lecture with Professor Cristina Helena Pinto de Mello and Professor Mariana Ferreira. On our way to the building, we saw a lot of paintings on the wall of the main hall. Students usually get together and eat lunch on the stairs of this main hall. The teacher said she would shout in the middle of the hall once there were some important announcement. The paintings on the wall will be painted new each year.
The professor first talked about all the major problems in Brazil. The most important issue Cristina Helena Pinto de Mello mentioned was education. There are not enough teachers and resources and there are 25% of the population have less than 4 years of education. One fun fact I got from her is that Brazil is the 9th market of Ferrari even though Brazil is a quite poor country. And then Mariana Ferreira talked about the history of Brazil such as coronéis and the impeachment process which leads to all the economic and political problems Brazil is facing. The interest rate is now even higher than 300%. At the end of the lecture, the professor gave us a case to let us figure out a solution to give credits to low income people.
We were all divided into groups contains two Brazilian students and two or three UIUC students. And then we had a really nice buffet for lunch together. After we were given the information, everyone started working on the solution right away when we got back to the university. In my group, UIUC students and Brazilian students worked really well because we could provide some credit policies from successful credit card companies in US and Brazilian students could improve those ideas with the Brazil situation. It was a great time working with the Brazilian students because they are fun to hang out and I learnt the Brazil culture in the most real way. I really enjoyed this project and how we helped each other with different languages and cultures.
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