Exchange student awarded scholarship

 After experiencing difficulties finding the right people with the right qualifications, a Norwegian company recently established in Brazil chose to to award a scholarship to a Norwegian exchange student in Rio de Janeiro, hoping this will contribute to facilitating future recruitment of engineers.

  The lack of qualified manpower is a known challenge for Norwegian as well as Brazilian companies in the maritime and offshore sectors in Brazil. Back in Norway, attracting qualified professionals is also seen as a challenge to the industry.

“For years, Noreq has been looking for competent engineers, but we have experienced great difficulties, and the lack of qualified engineers in the industry is painfully clear to us. This way we hope to attract the interest of more young engineers, and our ambition is to inspire those interested in an education within maritime engineering”, says Bjørn Sturle Hillestad, sales- and marketing manager at Noreq, a company that develops and delivers lifesaving equipment. In 2010, Noreq do Brasil was established, with offices in the Rio Sul business tower.

Strategic importance
There are about 10 Norwegian exchange students in Rio de Janeiro this year, and most of them are taking courses related to offshore engineering. Arild Grønevik, a 23 year old student of maritime engineering at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) was elected by Noreq to receive the scholarship, due to his choice of education, combined with his practical skills as a metal worker, and awarded the scholarship of 40.000 NOK.

“I am obviously very happy”, says Arild Grønevik. Since August 2011, he has been attending courses as an exchange student at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

“I wanted to go to Brazil because I find the future to be more interesting here than in the United States, Singapore and Europe. I would like to work over here after completing my education. Although the regulations for foreign workers are strict, Brazil is going to need foreign professionals in the future as well. I would like a job where I can travel the world, maybe something withing drilling, offshore services or safety”, he says.

To Noreq, Brazil is a country of great strategic interest.

“We chose to award a scholarship to a student from Kvinnherad, where Noreq has its headquarters. Attracting engineers to a small town on the northwest coast is another challenge we are facing, because many prefer bigger Norwegian companies like Aker and Statoil when given the choice. We saw it as a great advantage that Arild is currently studying in Brazil. The fact that he is already showing interest for a new and growing market, is very positive, and who knows, to us, his experience and knowledge of Brazil might come in handy in the future”, says Mr Hillestad.

Barriers
NTNU and UFRJ have an exchange agreement, and three other Norwegian students are also spending the year at the UFRJ campus at Fundão. The lectures are in Portuguese, and the Norwegian students struggled a bit in the beginning.

“We took Portuguese classes, and the first month we didn’t really understand much, but mathematics is a universal language, and now we’re doing fine,”, says Arild. He doesn’t characterize language as the biggest barrier.

“Everything takes more time in Brazil. Traffic is a challenge, to get the right information is sometimes hard, sometimes the professors decide to cancel classes without telling anyone. But in the end, everything always works out fine. Brazilians are flexible, the atmosphere is great, people are charming and the beach lovely.”

Arild intends to use the scholarship to cover his daily expenses as a student in Rio de Janeiro. He shares an apartment in Copacabana with three other friends and fellow students.

“It is more expensive to live in Rio than expected, and we pay about the same rent here as in Norway. Eating out is cheaper, and we go out more, and this way end up spending a bit more”, he says.

In June, Arild goes back to Norway, and when vacation ends in February, he starts his last trimester at UFRJ. But for now he will receive family members, enjoy the beach and the Rio nightlife.

By Runa Hestmann Tierno, NBCC journalist