If you love music, dance and Fado (a popular Portuguese music genre), Portugal is a great choice to study abroad. From cosmopolitan Lisbon to the stunning beaches, Portugal has something for everyone. Explore the ancient cathedrals and castles, rugged mountains, open air markets selling fresh produce or folk festivals.
Soccer, surfing, dance clubs, fairs and festivals make weekends a truly fun time for young people in Portugal.
You can live either in an urban or suburban area in Portugal. Expect to have a fair share of independence and responsibilities, like cleaning up after yourself and helping with the household chores. Portuguese families enjoy traveling together to visit their country house on weekends or spend time on the beach. Food is a big part of Portuguese life and a time for animated and long family conversations.
You’ll attend a public high school with other students your age, and you can choose to focus on science and technology, social-economic sciences, social and human sciences, languages and literature, or visual arts. Portuguese schools are challenging and have long hours, but they’re also a great place to meet people, make friends and learn the Portuguese language, history and culture.
The main language spoken in Portugal is Portuguese. To help you learn the language, AFS will give you a booklet and audio files. Hosting schools usually provide students with Portuguese-for-foreigners language classes, either individually or in groups.
Seafood is very popular in Portugal and other plates include meat, bread, cheese, fresh fruits and vegetables. Pork, lamb, beef, chicken, and rabbit are all common sources of meat. You’ll also find lots of pastry shops with a world of sweets to discover and learn by name.
Our learning program will prepare you for an amazing AFS intercultural experience. The program begins at your home country with a pre-departure orientation and continues with orientations and other supported learning activities and facilitated conversations will help you maximize your experience, cope the challenges of navigating a new culture and community and gain knowledge, skills, and a global understanding, throughout your time abroad, and as you return to you home country. AFS volunteers will be there to support and guide you and your host family through your learning journey abroad.
The Global Competence Certificate (GCC) program will support your intercultural learning experience. This state-of-the-art program prepares you to successfully navigate new cultural environments—during your AFSNext experience and long after you finish the program. Online intercultural learning modules combined with in-person sessions help you develop practical and global skills, knowledge and attitudes that employers need and mission-driven organizations believe will help achieve their social impact goals. You will receive your certification upon completion of the training program.