I really enjoy Rose Cafes where I get to hear about another country from somebody who is from there because they always debunk misconceptions I have about said country. The biggest one for me with this one was the ecological diversity of Brazil. I knew that Brazil was a very large country, but I still somehow assumed that most of it was tropical rainforest? I don’t know why either, so don’t ask. The point is it was cool to hear Andre Simores talk about his work in different areas of Brazil and show pictures of said areas that were very different from the Brazil I had in my mind before the event.

It was also cool to hear him talk about the difference between colleges and universities in the US versus Brazil. I thought it was interesting that for Brazilian students, public universities are the top tier universities, but a large number of said students went to private high schools. It seems to be the reverse of what it is in the US, where most high schoolers attend public universities but there is a conception that private universities are better than public universities. I also thought it was interesting that the implications of this mean that as more private high school students fill up spots in the free public universities, students from public high schools who may have a harder time affording tuition have a hard time getting into the free public universities. Simores also made it sound like most students don’t live in university housing.

All in all, it was cool to hear about Brazil and Brazilian colleges from someone who lives there because it brings a perspective I had never heard before.