In July, the University will for the second time send its top students to a summer school at Sophia University in Japan. Three students from each faculty have been selected and officially received their prize yesterday from University President Rolf Tarrach and the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Japan in Luxembourg, Mr Kohji Seike.

The “Top Student Prize” was introduced in 2007 in order to reward the University’s best students and give them at the same time the opportunity to discover a different culture and broaden their horizon. After several groups of students were sent to summer school at Shandong University in China, the University decided last year to opt for another destination: Sophia University in Tokyo. Sophia University is the University of Luxembourg’s main partner institution in Japan and has its Europe office in Luxembourg, on Campus Limpertsberg.

The summer session in Asian studies, which takes places from 24 July to 15 August, offers students the opportunity to learn some Japanese but also to experience many aspects of Japanese culture and society and learn about Japanese history, politics, economy and religion.

The first group of students who attended the Sophia University summer school in 2013 very much enjoyed this extraordinary experience. “What is striking about Tokyo is that it looks very Western, but still I have never felt so far away from home”, says Steven Koener, one of the students who attended the summer school last year.

The students selected this year come from the:

• Bachelor en Sciences de l'Éducation;
• Bachelor en Cultures Européennes;
• Master in European Governance;
• Master en Droit Européen;
• Master of Accounting and Audit;
• Bachelor en Gestion;
• Bachelor en Informatique;
• Bachelor en Sciences et Ingénierie;
• Master in Condensed Matter Physics.

They have 8 different nationalities: Luxembourgish, French, German, Belgian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish and Romanian.

Photo:The students selected for the Top student prize together with the associate coordinator of the Sophia University Luxembourg office, Vladimir Broz (on the left), the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Japan, Kohji Seike (5th from the right), and President Rolf Tarrach (4th from the right), © Michel Brumat