Bárbara and José | Stories that start at IEP and head to Brussels

Bárbara Matias and José Limão work in Brussels, at the European Commission and at FIPRA, a European affairs consultancy. Their story with international relations begins at the Institute for Political Studies (IEP) in Lisbon. Bárbara, who did her Undergraduate Degree in Political Science and International Relations at the institute, tells us that she arrived "at the IEP when she had just turned 18", and José was a Master's student.

They met through the Institute's Alumni network and talk enthusiastically about their time there. Despite having taken different degrees, when asked what led them to choose IEP, the answer always goes through: "the advantage of having political science and international relations in the same degree". A choice that José describes as "very natural", due to the "reputation and the way the course was built."

For Bárbara, the decision was primarily due to the fact that "it was the Universidade Católica" and she admits: "when I was at IEP I started to realise what I had gotten myself into, in a good sense." Throughout her degree she discovered what she calls the "iepian network that extends to Oxford and various European universities". The alumna also highlights the institute's annual meeting, the Estoril Political Forum, which brings together "so many thinkers and so many inspiring heads...for three days of talks and discussions, which are absolutely spectacular".

As for the classes, the one that marked her most was "Tradition of the Great Books" or "TGL, as we call it among undergraduates students", says Bárbara. In this class "we talked from Plato to Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, that is, we would go through all the great thinkers" who built Democracy as we know it today.

It was entering the "IEP world", as José puts it, that increased his "passion for political science and political philosophy". Among the teachers that marked his passage through the IEP, the alumnus remembers Hugo Chelo, "but there are others, such as Professor Miguel Monjardino, Miguel Morgado, all teachers that marked me and in fact distinguished themselves for their competence and quality, of the classes and the way in which the topics were passed on to us", adds the consultant.

After completing her degree, Bárbara worked for NATO, is currently a project manager at the European Commission and is confident: "I feel that my degree offered a spectacular basis to jump to the master's degree, to start my career". The same thing happened to José. The former student says that his career, which already includes two consultancies in European affairs, "is very dependent" on the degree he took at the institute. "I know that the Master's degree at the IEP gave me the construction of the professional personality and the thinking personality," he adds.

About the Master's, José highlights: "I think it gave me fundamental bases and essentially I think it prepared me, and then it allowed me to build myself". For the consultant, the journey at the IEP "influenced a lot" and "marks the beginning of this journey in Brussels."