Travelling to the Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL) in Rabat, Morocco was one of the highlights of my PhD so far. It was my very first paper presentation at my very first big conference, so naturally I arrived with equal amounts of excitement, nerves, and the vague feeling that I should try very hard not to look too obviously starstruck.
EACL is a major conference in computational linguistics and natural language processing, which meant that for a few days I was surrounded by people thinking deeply about language and machines. In other words, I had definitely found my people. The conference was big, busy, and full of energy. There were talks on all sorts of topics, from cutting-edge NLP systems to deeper questions about how language works or applications of current systems. As someone still early in my career, it was both inspiring and slightly overwhelming, in the best possible way. My brain got a lot of input, and unlike some NLP models, I was genuinely happy about the overload.
Even the welcome pack made an impression with the beautiful goodies bag. Academic conferences are usually known for papers, posters, and coffee, but this bag really carried the event well.
One of the most memorable parts of the trip was the conference dinner at the Sofitel. The venue was huge and elegant, and the whole evening felt festive from start to finish. The food was excellent, and after several days of intense thinking and talking, it was nice to switch from food for thought to actual food. There was music, dancing, and a wonderfully memorable calligraphy station where people could get their names written in Arabic script. Seeing my name transformed in that way was such a lovely moment. It made the evening feel not just international, but truly connected to the local culture.
Another special part of the trip was attending the LChange 26 workshop where I got to meet the semantic change community: in other words, my academic birds of a feather. It was genuinely exciting to meet leading experts and colleagues whose work I already knew, including Nina Tahmasebi, Pierluigi Cassotti, Andrey Kutuzov, and others. As a PhD student, there is something surreal about going from citing people in your paper to chatting with them in real life. These conversations meant a lot to me. They reminded me that research is not only about producing knowledge, but also about finding a community of people asking similar questions.
I was also really happy to meet other Vietnamese researchers at the conference. The Vietnamese group was small, but diverse, with people working on different topics and coming from different paths. It was a nice reminder that no matter where we are, we still bring a bit of home with us.
Overall, this trip meant a lot to me. It was my first big conference, my first paper on that stage, and my first real taste of what it means to be part of an international research community. I came back with new ideas, new connections, and a lot of motivation. You could say the trip was very meaningful.
Bách Phan-Tất is a PhD student at KU Leuven’s QLVL Research Group and is part of the MSCA-funded CASCADE network. His project focuses on using quantitative methods to reveal dimensions of language change. His goal is to bridge Linguistics and xAI, drawing on his research interests in Semantics, Computational/Corpus Linguistics, and Language Variation and Change. He holds an MSc in Linguistics from the University of Stirling, where he is the first student in the department’s history to win the Best Master Dissertation Prize. He’s published in different conferences, where his work focused on analysing linguistic data. Bách also has practical experience as an NLP Engineer and is proficient in quantitative/statistical methods, machine/deep learning, and Python/R programming.
CASCADE is a collaboration between University College Cork, University of Sheffield, University of Helsinki, KU Leuven, and Universität des Saarlandes. Funded by Horizon Europe under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks and the UKRO.