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International Affairs
Motorway
Tel-Aviv – Haifa
4:35 pm
It’s hot. With 20°C and not the
forecasted 8°C, it feels much more
like a very sunny day in Berlin in early
summer. We were kindly met by an
Israeli colleague, and now a minibus is
taking us to Haifa. Orange and lemon
tree groves are passing by the window
as the driver meticulously finds his way
through the dense traffic. Although
we have practically not had any winter
weather in Berlin this year - there was
a brief snowfall just a few days ago –
all of a sudden our campus looked so
Christmassy white and sparkling. This is
why seeing the lush greenery, flowering
bougainvillea and mighty palm-trees,
although expected, still feels somewhat
surprising and hard to believe,
considering it is the end of January.
“Looks like California or Singapore,”
says Walter Birchmeier, and others nod
in agreement.
Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Prof. Amit Meller and Prof. Claus Scheidereit
(Speakers of the Joint PhD Program SignGene)
Prof. Peretz Lavie (President of Technion) / from left
© Technion
Orangetree
Jan 26
Guesthouse at
the Technion
campus
6:45 am
My first meeting with the head of the
Technion Graduate School, Professor
Hillel Pratt, is scheduled for 7:15, so
I got up early to make some notes on
what we need to discuss during the 45
minutes we have.
We had a very warm welcome dinner
yesterday evening, with both Technion
and Hebrew University scientists,
including a bunch of PhD students. The
discussion with the senior group leaders
was intense - we had so little time to
talk over so many details on how the
joint PhD program could be organised,
what could work and what probably
would not, and what the advantages
would be for students, faculty members
and the institutes. In parallel, the PhD
students from both countries had a
lively discussion on the differences in
getting a PhD degree in their respective
countries, agreeing that everywhere
students are expected to work rather
hard to get their projects done in a
reasonable time.
Technion campus
8:15 am
It is breakfast time. We are heading
to Café Greg on the huge Technion
campus, where we enjoy our coffee
sitting outside on a square directly
under magnificent cedar trees and
taking in the striking view of downtown
Haifa and the scent of Mediterranean
herbs, mixed with a gentle sea-breeze.
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