'Explore everything the university has to offer - which is a lot': Gonçalo Castelo-Branco appointed as Alumni Ambassador
The investiture took place on 5 February during the welcome session for Erasmus and other exchange students at the UC Rectory Auditorium.
'Make the most of it'—this was the key advice given by João Nuno Calvão da Silva, Vice-Rector for External Relations and Alumni of the University of Coimbra (UC), to the approximately 600 new Erasmus students who filled the UC rectory auditorium during the Welcome session.
Calvão da Silva, a "lifelong guardian of the Erasmus spirit", assured the mobility students in his welcome speech that this would be an unforgettable experience. In a university with around 20% international students, the Vice-Rector emphasised: "Being here and doing Erasmus here is amazing. The classes, the teachers, the new relationships you'll make. You will be forever Coimbra students."
The session also included the investiture of Gonçalo Castelo-Branco as a UC Alumni Ambassador. The former biochemistry student at the UC Faculty of Sciences and Technology, whose passion for research continues to this day, shared how his interest in music led him to take a course in programming and voice-over at 'Rádio Universidade de Coimbra'. Or how he and some 30 or 40 of his peers from all over the country and abroad used to gather outside the Faculty of Arts to play music, sing and serenade.
"Explore everything the university has to offer - and there's a lot," said the now full professor and cell biology researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Gonçalo Castelo-Branco added that the UC had "broadened his horizons" and guaranteed that the same will happen to Erasmus students if they seize the opportunity.
