Bratislava, Slovakia

We took a day trip to Bratislava, in Slovakia, to tour the Univerzita Komenského. It was fairly run-down on the outside, remnants of the soviet-era architecture and lack of strong academic funding, however, I found the faculty and students quite proud and enthusiastic about their research and it was impressive, given such a modest budget.


As you can see, the outside is quite worn-out.


The inside wasn't that great either.


However, they are able to still perform some fantastic experiments, like this laser lab. Because of their limited funding, Eastern European researchers tend to focus on the hard sciences, where expensive equipment is not too necessary. One of the most interesting observations I made is that these scientists work very closely with their students--I mean shoulder-to-shoulder in the laboratories--all day long, even though many of these scientists teach multiple classes at multiple universities: amazing!