There are two real reasons to do a master’s degree. You do it either to move forward in life, acquiring new skills that will take you somewhere, or to pull back from life, put off the looming rat race for a moment more, and continue learning about what really interests you. The CLE provides an opportunity to do both while immersing yourself in new cultures. Italy and France, two great libraries, were opened to me in their native tongues and this master’s allowed me – forced me – to explore them.

From my first year in red Bologna to my second under Strasbourg’s greened copper roofs, there were key constants: friends, coffee breaks, cultural events, contagious curiosity, acute bibliophilia, the convergence of cultures. Each intake of the CLE is like an eclectic, international petri dish in which it’s hard not to grow. And its vitro, the courses, are a strong and varied foundation, exploring translation, publishing, linguistics, and history. The main thing the CLE offers, however, is a tangibile closeness to literature, be it in lectures, at multilingual conferences, book fairs, theatres, or simply wandering between library stacks while trying to decide on an essay topic.

Going into this programme, it is difficult to properly grasp the idea that you will write and defend a thesis in a foreign language. And yet, you do it, because you have to, and you learn a tremendous amount. The combination of challenge and possibility that this master’s represents is what makes it so interesting and enjoyable. A good education should push you just far enough outside your comfort zone that you are guaranteed to learn something new. The CLE does this well.