Report on Mid-term Overseas Study Programs for Academic Year 2015. Aug-Sep.

Tomoya Furukawa

I went to the University of Porto, Portugal from Aug 23, 2015 to Sep 27, 2015. The objective of this overseas study is study Inductive Logic Programing (ILP) under Professor Inês Dutra. ILP is one of machine learning techniques. I am interested in it because my research in University of Aizu is application of machine learning. Moreover, fortunately, University of Porto is included in international affiliated school. Therefore, I decide that I go to the college.
Portugal is in Southwestern Europe, and neighbor of Spain. The official language is Portuguese. When I talk about this program, we ask me that can you speak Portuguese?, but I know only few words in Portuguese. In other words, because almost people can speak English, you will not have serious trouble even if you cannot speak Portuguese.
I was helped out by Professor. Inês Dutra when I study ILP in Porto. Because the professor is Brazilian, she is the person that can understand that someone study English as me. Because going to oversea country was first time in my life, I cannot talk English well. However, the professor was very kindness for that. She effort to speak english slowly at all time, and she encourage me to speak English.
In weekend, my friends held welcome event, for example, I went to Douro river under a guidance of friend. The river is very famous as a vineyard for wine and a tourist area. Very many people gather there in the night, and we enjoy dinner, wine, street performer and bazaar. I could see all of them.
Through this opportunity, I get two confidence. The first one is to study in oversea country. I worried about studying in Engilsh before I went to study abroad, but I can communicate and study specialized field using English more than I had imagined. I was very glad about it and I come to think I would like to challenge of participating event and studying using English. The second one is to challenge for the difficulty. As mentioned above, this studying abroad is a first time oversea in my life. In addition, within this program, I do almost alone. It is continuous strain, for example, I taken an airplane, I was only one Japanese at the long time, and I stayed oversea. However, I could get overcome many difficulty. I will challenge the difficulty with these confidence.