Lisboa Love August 2013

Familiar metro stations of Lisboa..

It was August 2013, and Lisboa had started to become my second hometown, almost. That was a remarkable visit from Stockholm, and my second visit to Portugal! Thanks to Erasmus Mundus for everything!

The next episode..

IST, Lisbon, commonly called "Tecnico"

I thought of writing this quick post answering some of the questions I often receive regarding the master studies in Europe, and specifically Erasmus Mundus (which is to be re-branded as "Erasmus+", making all similar exchange programs such as Erasmus come under the same name). 

Europe

The commonest question is, why did I pick Europe for my higher studies, instead of the US or Australia. European masters provide a nice combination of research and academics in a single master, as opposed to the complete research oriented master courses and academic master courses. Of course, the mandatory mobility of Erasmus Mundus, where we are expected to study in at least two countries during our masters is something I really liked.

Erasmus Mundus

Most of the students going to the US are going for their PhD. They get funded mostly by being a research assistant or teaching assistant. IMO, it is hard for a student to get a scholarship for masters in the US. There are research masters in Canada and the US, with similar paid research assistantship. However, Erasmus Mundus is a scholarship. You are not expected to be an assistant. You just study. The monthly allowance of 1000 Euro is pretty much enough to cover the stay in Europe, along with the travel allowances for travelling home and installation (4000 Euro/year).

Further?

ISCTE-IUL, a public university in Lisbon

Most of the PhD programs in the Europe require you to have a masters, where you can directly apply to be a PhD student in the US and Australia. Though I had a goal of pursuing a doctorate, I wanted to work for a year or two immediately following my masters. Hence European master gave me a better option, than applying for a 5 year long program of the US, which covers the MSc+PhD (Australia seems to provide the fastest, with just 3 years for the combination). European doctorate programs such as Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate programs have a period of 4 years.

A break?

Should we apply to the higher studies immediately after graduating from our bachelors? It depends on your personal profile. I mean, if you have a good experience, have published papers, very good GPA, you can apply immediately after the bachelors. Otherwise, better to gain some experience. Just to note that these scholarships are competitive. In my opinion, working somewhere before going abroad for higher studies is advantageous, as it gives you some exposure outside your friend circle. Nevertheless, these are just my personal opinions, and I have met many professors and scholars who would advice to go for higher studies, immediately following the bachelors, to keep up with the momentum.

See you soon!

Time has surely gone fast for me. Completing one academic year as well as the summer vacation, getting ready for the second (and final) year of my masters. Life is getting more exciting and faster. One thing I learned during these days was that life is not a destination or reaching the destinations; but a continuous journey. With that positive note, I am getting back to my world, hoping to come up with something more useful or (and?) interesting soon. ^_^

Moments with Twitter - III

After a few months, I did another round of tweet analysis, on my own tweets. I have shared quite a few interesting links, over the past couple of months. Also have a look at Moments with Twitter.. and Moments with Twitter - II to see some of my previous tweets.

Agia PDF Search is a useful search site that lets you search and read the PDF documents online. Oct 15, 2012

Just enter your academic email address to increase the space in your existing #Dropbox account by 3 GB or more https://t.co/GPKJrJPu Oct 15, 2012
Dropbox is interesting, and their business model is even more interesting! All the students love Dropbox, which is mostly a free cloud storage system, though paid premium packages are available.

End of Day Light Saving Time!
DST started on Sun, 25 March, 01:00 local standard time; Ends on Sun, 28 Oct, 02:00 local daylight time - http://t.co/prM3aRj4 Back to GMT. Oct 21, 2012
From the coming Sunday onwards, we will be back from the natural time, from the daylight saving time. This will make Portugal to go with GMT, and this will make the time difference with Sri Lanka, -05:30.

Changed my #twitter profile picture for the first time, since I created the account. Almost 4 years, and I didn't change much though. ;) Nov 02, 2012

Changing the profile pictures and the short bio in these profiles are becoming a harder task considering the ever increasing online presence of myself in multiple social media platforms.

An interesting, yet idiot's way to grab more visitors to your blog - Write a blog post titled, Is {SOMETHING} dead? For e.g., "Is SEO Dead?" Nov 30, 2012  
Another way, Write a silly post with a numbered title, with superlatives. For e.g: 7 worst mistakes that horse owners make in the night. :D Nov 30, 2012
OK. We all have this curiosity to click that link!

The adventures of young student backpackers with Eurail passes, 1970. 1970's photos of train travels in the Europe. http://t.co/EMN3IIMk Jan 03, 2013
Student backpackers - this term probably fits the Erasmus Mundus / Erasmus students, at least in some points of our life. One of my favourite backpacking blogs is, Breakaway Backpacker.

A ҉ Y ҉ U ҉ B ҉ O ҉ W ҉ A ҉ N ҉ Mar 03, 2013
Hello, Sri Lankan Style!

Shenzhen Window of the World.. http://t.co/w9DQqOyXct Mar 11, 2013

What is my #IP? http://t.co/DPaIw2cMtB Jul 26, 2013

CHINAKNOWLEDGE - a universal guide for #China studies http://t.co/2whemOIDrw Jul 30, 2013
This is an interesting resource to learn about China, its culture, and the Chinese language. MIT OpenCourseWare too has Simplified Chinese and other Chinese courses under the foreign languages and literature section. For me, listening to Chinese songs with the lyrics written in pinyin appears easy. Everything else seems just Chinese. :D

Collection of oddities.. the odd stuff.. http://t.co/GcXkqAP7iP Aug 02, 2013
These odd stuff are interesting. Bored Panda is a similar online magazine. However, I don't find anything these articles report odd. I find the mainstream news these days more 'odd'. One news was "Vietnam to ban discussion of news on social media sites". The situation globally doesn't look nice to me. Have a look at the Press Freedom Index of 2013.

Disconnected Worlds

Walk towards the 'point' in Parque das Nações

That was the 28th of June, the late night 12.15 a.m after the Porto trip. Enjoying Dim Sum in a Cantonese restaurant in Arroios, I was thinking of the day of return to Sri Lanka, which was just a few more days ahead. It was just 10 months in Lisbon, and for many of the readers, this period may be awfully short. But I should note that these 10 months were the best part of my life, so far. My mind was empty when I came to Lisbon. I earned lots of friends during my stay, which essentially had filled my mind full of memories. One thing I liked most about Erasmus Mundus is, it had offered us an immediate set of friends. As a set of foreign students, we all had become a clique, regardless of our cultural diversity.

Staring at a fish tank
Though we are separated by the ocean, I thought, we are still connected. We are still living in a connected world. I was wondering, how horrible that we force fish and birds to live in disconnected worlds by capturing them from their natural habitats to our fish tanks and cages. Probably they will miss their loved ones, forever. Just imagine, what would happen if you are dropped at Mars with a no return journey to the Earth (refer to the Mars One initiative)! 

Reverse Cultural Shock?

A big fish in Lisbon Oceanarium

When I came to Lisbon, I was thinking, what would I feel when I return to Sri Lanka. I thought, I would be really excited. I would not really miss anyone, because I will anyway meet all my friends again at Sweden! But what happened? Lisbon was not a mere place where I studied for a few months. Rather, it redefined me. It let me see the world in another perspective. I earned more friends than I thought. The life was simple; but complicated and complex. I was happy and sad at the same time. Then I realized, I was just sad. While I was walking towards the gate after the security checking in the Lisbon airport, I realized that I am leaving my heart in Lisbon. I will be back, I said myself. Lisbon had written so much into my memory. The days in Sri Lanka introduced a reverse cultural shock to me. I knew about it; but never thought it would happen to me, myself.

Back to 2012?
In Sri Lanka, I had the chance to meet my beloved lecturers and my friends. I started to become active. I thought of writing something on my blog, since it was starting to lose its technological essence once more, as I haven't blogged on technical stuff, after the series of posts on Jikes RVM. However, all I had was the thoughts and reflections of Lisbon. I feel like I have left some of myself at Lisboa!

Living Light Weight
Before my Erasmus Mundus life, it never occurred to me that I will have to shrink my belongings to some luggage. Travelling have to be light weight, and due to the mandatory mobility involved in the Erasmus Mundus, we also have to live light-weight. This involved a decision making on what to throw and what to take back with me.

TripAdvisor
I had some free time, and I decided to review the places I visited in Lisbon. I started writing reviews at TripAdvisor, which I didn't do for almost a year. You may have a look at my reviews. Oh, I am a proud Senior Contributor of TripAdvisor. I found the blog post, "What Happens When You Live Abroad" sharing same sentiments as me on living abroad.

visitinlisbon
My friend pointed me out visitinlisbon.com recently, when I was chatting with friends from Lisbon, over the Facebook. That site is indeed useful for anyone who is travelling to Lisbon for the first time. What I like about their site is, they keep it simple. Click through the tabs, and make sure you visit this site on a later day again, as this site is pretty much new and currently being updated.

Erasmus Mundus Presentation at the University of Moratuwa

Erasmus mundus presentation from Pradeeban Kathiravelu, Ph.D.

Today I gave an introductory talk to the Erasmus Mundus program for the final year students of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. The presentation slides which complimented the discussion are given above, though the presentation doesn't capture much of the topics discussed in the session. I enjoyed doing the talk and the students showed great interest and involvement. 

This was a quick introduction to the Erasmus Mundus program, based on my personal experience with Erasmus Mundus after completing the first year of EMDC (European Master in Distributed Computing) at Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon. My blog posts on my stay in Lisbon can be found here. Feel free to drop me a line, if you require further information on this.