PhD History

Incoming 2015

From University of the Western Cape

Research Project:
The experience of ethnic and regional identities in the Congolese diaspora. The cases of the Baswahili (Swahili-speaking people of the Eastern DRC, such as the former Kivu and Katanga) and Kinois (inhabitants of Kinshasa who speak Lingala).

My name is Rosette Sifa Vuninga and I am a PhD student of History at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.

I was in Cologne for one week and attended the "Academic Training Workshop". In this workshop we were reminded of the most basic principals in academic writing, while learning new strategies with regard to academic projects.

One focus of the workshop was on writing a research proposal, focusing on the importance of having a clear research question, a main aim of the research and objectives which were defined as steps/ strategies to answer the main research question.

I enjoyed each day of the workshop because we did not only discuss academic writings, but also got to meet scholars from different disciplines, including those who deal with research and budget proposals on their daily basis. These friendly scholars openly shared with us their experiences of reading and rating proposals and gave us the most important tips in writing successful ones in the future.

During the workshop, we also got to hear about fellow students’ research experiences. This section was the most enjoyable because we learned a lot from each other, especially with regards to our academic challenges.

We were a small group of postgraduate students from Argentina, India, China, Uganda, DR Congo, South Africa and Germany.

We did not only learn academically but also culturally with regards to Cologne city in particular and Gemany in general. I cannot wait for the next workshop!