u/bruhboy1234567890

Hi everyone,

I’m posting on behalf of a good friend of mine who recently finished his undergraduate degree and is spending his gap year back home with his family in Ennis.

He’s currently working at McDonald’s, but I’d love to help him find something a bit more interesting and better suited to him. He’s smart, reliable, very well-read, and genuinely curious about a lot of different things. He studied Liberal Arts, combining Chemistry and Philosophy, so he has a pretty unusual mix of interests and skills.

I know opportunities can be limited in a smaller town, but I thought it was worth asking here in case anyone knows of a local business, organisation, or person looking for someone. He’d be open to things like admin, research, customer-facing work, or really anything where he could learn and contribute.

If you’re based in Ennis and know of anything, feel free to send me a DM. Just trying to help a friend make a bit more of his gap year.

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I’m a master’s student in Lisbon and I’ve been wanting to get into bikepacking for a while. My long-term goal is to cycle from Lisbon to Utrecht after I finish my master’s, since that’s where I did my undergrad.

Before buying something new, I thought I’d ask here in case someone has a decent bike gathering dust in a garage or storage room and would rather see it actually used.

I’m 185 cm tall and pretty flexible on the type of bike. Gravel, touring, rigid MTB, hardtail, older steel bike, whatever could make sense for bikepacking. I’d also be interested in any bags, racks, panniers or other gear you no longer use.

My budget is up to around €700 depending on the bike and what’s included. I’m based in Lisbon but happy to travel around the Lisbon area, Sintra, Cascais, Setúbal, etc. to pick something up.

So if you bought an ambitious bikepacking setup a few years ago, used it twice, and it has been quietly judging you from the garage ever since, send me a message. I’d be very happy to give it a second life.

Hey everyone,

I’m a master’s student in Lisbon and I’ve been wanting to get into bikepacking for a while. My long-term goal is to cycle from Lisbon to Utrecht after I finish my master’s, since that’s where I did my undergrad.

Before buying something new, I thought I’d ask here in case someone has a decent bike gathering dust in a garage or storage room and would rather see it actually used.

I’m 185 cm tall and pretty flexible on the type of bike. Gravel, touring, rigid MTB, hardtail, older steel bike, whatever could make sense for bikepacking. I’d also be interested in any bags, racks, panniers or other gear you no longer use.

My budget is up to around €700 depending on the bike and what’s included. I’m based in Lisbon but happy to travel around the Lisbon area, Sintra, Cascais, Setúbal, etc. to pick something up.

So if you bought an ambitious bikepacking setup a few years ago, used it twice, and it has been quietly judging you from the garage ever since, send me a message. I’d be very happy to give it a second life.

I need to raise an issue of grave institutional importance.

How is it possible that Nova SBE, supposedly the shining Carcavelos epitome of modernity, innovation, entrepreneurship and progress, has thousands of students and yet I cannot get a genuinely good flat white on campus?

I am not asking for much. A proper flat white. Some bean variety. Maybe, if we are feeling particularly ambitious, coffee that tastes like somebody involved actually cared about the beans.

Surely among the THOUSANDS of business bros roaming this campus, someone can identify this glaring market failure and disrupt it.

You are surrounded by future consultants, founders, finance people and self-proclaimed entrepreneurs. Somebody please open a specialty coffee stand.

I hope this message reaches the ears of whoever has the institutional or entrepreneurial power to do something about this travesty.

Please. I just want a good flat white.

Hey! Do you like cinema?

I’m thinking of starting a small cinema club at Nova SBE, mainly just to organise weekly screenings and watch some good films together.

It would be very simple and informal, but if we organise it as an official club, we could potentially get some funding and make the screenings a bit better.

I’m looking for a few people who like cinema and would be interested in helping organise it with me. Nothing too serious or time-consuming just choosing films, organising screenings and building a little cinema community at Nova.

If you're interested, send me a message here on Reddit and we can organise it together :)

Hey! I’m a 21-year-old Spanish/Portuguese student currently in Utrecht, and honestly… I’m getting a bit bored here 😂

I’m leaving Utrecht soon to move to Portugal for my master’s, so I want to use my last week here to travel around Europe a bit. I’m thinking of hitchhiking from Utrecht towards northern France sometime between 14–20 August, but I’m pretty flexible about the exact route/destination.

I’ve got quite a lot of hitchhiking experience, speak English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, and I’m basically just looking for someone who’s down for a spontaneous little adventure.

If you're interested, DM me! :)

Hey everyone :) I’m thinking of creating a hitchhiking club at Nova and wanted to see if anyone would be interested.

During my undergrad in Utrecht, we had the sickest hitchhiking club people hitchhiked from Utrecht to places like Valencia, Split, Lithuania, Warsaw, Budapest, etc. It was such a fun way to travel, meet people, and make random adventures happen on a student budget.

I’d love to try and recreate something similar here in Lisbon. Has anyone here hitchhiked before? Or would anyone be interested in helping organize a club / first trip?

Comment or message me if this sounds like your kind of fun!

I’m finishing my liberal arts thesis and I feel empty rather than proud. It took me much longer than expected, I don’t think I chose the right supervisor for my topic, and I feel like I never got the guidance I needed to turn the project into the kind of work I imagined. Now I’m looking at the draft and it feels like an approximation of a thesis rather than a proper contribution: the concepts feel messy, the argument feels stitched together, and I’m not sure the evidence carries the claims as strongly as it should.

Has anyone else finished a thesis feeling like it was more of a survival project than a real academic achievement? How did you make peace with submitting work that felt far below what you wanted it to be?

Hey everyone,

I am in the final stretch of my Bachelor thesis, and the 2-week deadline panic is officially setting in. I have a solid draft, but I am staring at it too closely and desperately need an outside perspective on my structure, flow, and theoretical integration.

I am feeling good about the empirical data, but I have a few specific dilemmas keeping me up at night.

If anyone has expertise in Securitization Theory, Critical Security Studies, or Southern African geopolitics, I would love your brutal honesty. Please send me a message any advice helps

Thanks in advance

Hey everyone!

Me and some friends have a bunch of floaties/inflatable tubes and we want to do a chill river float somewhere around Utrecht... basically get in at one point and see how far we can float along the longest continuous route possible.

Does anyone know a good river/canal route for this? Ideally somewhere safe, with a decent current, no annoying locks/boat traffic, and easy spots to get in and out.

Any recommendations for starting points, routes, or things to watch out for would be super appreciated!

Hi everyone! I’ll be starting the International Development & Public Policy master’s at Nova SBE and I’m currently looking for housing.

I’d love to live somewhere with a lot of international students / master’s students, ideally a social place where it’s easy to meet people. I don’t mind sharing common spaces with others, but I’d prefer to have my own room.

Does anyone have recommendations for residences, shared flats, areas to look in, or places to avoid? Any advice would be super appreciated :)

Hey everyone,

I’m currently writing my undergrad thesis on the Mozambican state’s response to the Cabo Delgado insurgency and honestly I feel a bit stuck and overwhelmed by the amount of material.

The thesis looks at state discourse/rhetoric vs actual counterinsurgency practice over time, using speeches, human rights reports, ACLED data, media sources, etc.

I feel like I’m drowning in content and struggling to structure the argument/methodology properly. Would really love to speak to someone who has written a similar thesis (especially on securitization, insurgencies, African politics, discourse analysis, or qualitative IR research).

If anyone would be open to a short call/chat sometime I’d massively appreciate it. Thanks 😄

Hi everyone,

I was recently admitted to the Master’s in International Development & Public Policy at NOVA SBE and I’d love to hear honest experiences from current students/alumni.

I’m especially interested in Lusophone Africa, development policy, and potentially working in Mozambique in the future, so the programme seems very aligned with my interests.

How have people found:

• the academic quality,
• career opportunities/network,
• student environment,
• and the programme’s real connection to development work in practice?

Would really appreciate any insight before making my decision 😄

Hey everyone,

I’m currently deciding between two master’s programs and honestly feeling pretty torn.

I got into the Public Policy program at Hertie in berlin and also into the Master’s in International Development & Public Policy at NOVA in Lisbon.

Hertie seems more internationally prestigious/competitive and would actually be cheaper for me, but NOVA feels much more connected to the Lusophone Africa/development world, especially Mozambique, which is an area I’d really like to work in long term.

Was wondering if anyone here has thoughts on:

• Hertie vs NOVA reputationally
• career prospects in policy/development
• whether specialization in Lusophone Africa is actually valuable
• or just generally which you’d choose and why

Would really appreciate any insight!!!