Semester opening with lectures, lively exchange and dancing mood

In the morning, all new first semester students were welcomed, had the opportunity to get to know each other and the staff of the institute and exchanged their expectations and wishes for the beginning of their Romance studies. After a guided tour of the Romance studies collections in the university library and lunch together in the canteen, students from all other semesters joined them.

The afternoon program began with a review of the past summer semester, in which a variety of seminars were offered on topics such as vocabulary work, text linguistics, migration history and excursions to Ludwigsburg and Ecuador. The initial results of the current student survey were presented and discussed in plenary before numerous lecturers presented their plans for the new winter semester, including seminars on sustainability communication, the Argentinean military dictatorship and didactic textbook analysis, as well as a Basque film evening, a language café, a colloquium on regional studies, a career-oriented lecture series and much more. It quickly became clear that there is a lot going on at the Institute of Romance Studies!

While the participants were already adding the first songs to the playlist for the evening, Prof. Dr. Jörg Requate, Mateo Chacón Pino, Annika Rink, Valentina Roether (all three from the IAG Climate Thinking), Marcel Hehr (doctoral candidate) and Joslyn Petri (student) presented their current research projects. In addition to new input, there was also plenty of room for discussion. In a tandem exchange, Romance studies students and international students with French and Spanish as their first languages got to know each other and promptly arranged to meet again during the semester. Students also shared their experiences abroad and advised each other on how to organize their degree. The International Office and the Student Council 02 also presented numerous advisory services. The many new ideas and faces finally came together for an after-work drink at the sumptuous evening buffet. The last item on the program was eagerly awaited: The Kassel brass band Boomhorns marched into the room with 11 people and even more instruments and got the crowd shaking! The Institute danced late into the night.