Brazilian students warming up to Laurentian University

Laurentian University in Sudbury welcomed thousands of students back to school last week, including 112 new international students.

Some of the countries represented on campus include Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Zimbabwe.

But one of the biggest contingents is from Brazil.

For Millena Guedes, who moved to Sudbury from Rio Di Janeiro last year to study engineering, it was a bit of a shock.

"It was the beginning of the winter so I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready at all,” she said. “In Rio De Janeiro, the coldest weather I had was plus-13."

Guedes is back for a second term at Laurentian under a Brazilian exchange program called Science Without Borders, a scholarship run by the Brazilian government to send young people abroad to study maths and sciences.

"It's a nationwide scholarship funded by the government of Brazil, also by the private sector," said Sandy Blake, who works with international students at Laurentian.

Close to 50 Brazilian students attend LU.

"They enjoy residence and everyone enjoys them,” Blake said. “They're a lot of fun to be around."

Many of these students are returning for a second year.

Some speculate the big Brazilian contingent might have something to do with the presence of Vale, the Brazilian mining giant that bought Inco in 2007.

But that’s not the case for Guedes, who said it is a lot easier to concentrate on her studies in Sudbury than in Rio.

"Everything here is over at 2 a.m.,” she said with a laugh. “Come on. Our parties [in Rio] used to end at 6 a.m. So, we party more."