"A small group of doctoral students as well as professors from different Universities (Brno, Bratislava, Budapest, Graz and Ljubljana) came together in Ljubljana for a short-term CEEPUS stay in November 2014. The purpose of this multicultural and multilingual meeting was to share our experiences in writing a doctoral thesis in Romance Literature or Linguistics and to present our projects and discuss them. I think that it was absolutely successful thanks to the perfect organization by the team of Meta Lah from Ljubljana University. They planned not only the course program, but also our stay in one of Ljubljana's most popular Hostels, a former prison (that sounds weird, but it was fun!), cultural activities and some meals.
As we all study different romance languages (French, Spanish or Italian) and focus on different topics (Linguistics, Literature or Historiography), there was a wide range of very interesting topics covered by the presentations held by students as well as the presentations held by professors. Since doctoral students are starting to do presentations on conferences, this was a good occasion to practise and to improve our projects thanks to the feedback.
Besides the academic activities, we also had an interesting sightseeing program. We visited the new Ethnographic museum of Ljubljana, the city center of Ljubljana and Bled, and we had a traditional Slovenian dinner. Despite the bad weather, we really enjoyed these excursions and talked a lot about cultural differences and similarities between our countries. There was no language we all knew, so we were constantly switching between French, English, Spanish and Italian, as well as adding some Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian, German and Hungarian. Thanks to this, we improved our language comprehension and switching skills and learned something about other languages. For me, this multilingual experience was an amazing lesson in intercomprehension. All in all, I benefited both from the academic practise and from the personal contact with students from various neighbour countries." (Katharina Gerhalter, PhD student, University of Graz)
"Between 7–11. November I attended as well PhD workshop in Ljubljana, Filozoficka Fakulteta. This seminar was for me really enriching and contributive because I had a chance to hear not only literature contribution but contribution about linguistics as well. In this way I could expand my knowledge in another area then the one I apply primary. I had as well chance to consult my work with the colleagues from another universities and gain new contacts. The seminar was among another things variegated with Ljubljana sightseeing, excursion to ethnographical museum and trip to Bled castle." (Andrea Jacková, PhD student, Masaryk University in Brno)
