My
first wise international advise to anyone interested. Never opt to
study with a very famous professor (like, say, Habermas, Peter
Singer, or Martha Nussbaum), especially if you are not well trained
in the language and culture of your sponsor and will stay abroad less
than one year. I'm not saying your choice will be a total wast of
time if you do go and study with Nussbaum or some other
philosophically well-known name. Perhaps you might get lucky and meet
someone who is a leading scholar and who is also available to you, as
I'm judging my time in Davis with Prof. Copp will be. But my
experience says that it is wiser to assure that you will be in a
place where people welcome you and offer equal actual conditions for
effective interaction. Sometimes Brazilian students and professors
assess their options for international studies in terms of how they
will later be perceived by their Brazilian colleagues, specially
those who didn't have the same opportunities to do research abroad.
"I have been studying with God, so you have to see me as a
demi-god", they appear to think. But this is completely
nonsensical. International studies is for meant to be a learning
experience and for acquiring new philosophical and personal
abilities. And the best way for achieve this is to dive into all the
wonderful resources that internationally good ranked universities
offer, such as research groups, libraries, classes, and regular
seminars and colloquia. Choose a place where people know who you are
and how much you want to learn and teach, and not a place that you
believe will make your fellows back home envy you. It might be
good to be envied for having been supervised by a great philosophical
name. But life is short and surely it's much better to be envied for
the abilities you have acquired and can put to work somehow.
Thanks to Prof. Severo for helping me revise this first advice.
I think it might be interesting especially to our graduate students
in Santa Maria. I'll try to write down others from time to time.
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