Highly recommended international workshops in Stellenbosch

Not far from the university town of Stellenbosch, the lovely town of Strand (meaning beach) provides a great place to unwind after the conference. Today the sea is like a dam -deceiving because this is also known as the Cape of storms. 

The centre for Higher and Adult Education in Stellebosch is presenting international workshops during March 2017. “The question of doctorateness: An international workshop for postgraduate supervision and doctoral candidates” will be presented by Prof Trafford and Prof Leshem based on their excellent book titled Stepping stones to achieving your doctorate. The conference will be presented 20-21 March and repeated 23-24 March. The registration fee (R5 100) include a copy of the book.

On 23-24 March Dr Plowright will present a workshop on “Challenging the mythology of methodology: upping your game in mixed methods research and supervision”. This workshop will cost R3 850.

Both these workshops will be held at Devon Valley Hotel, not one of our favourite hotels in Stellenbosch (too expensive, old and run down and not near the sites we wanted to visit and unaccommodating staff, parking is a nightmare, etc – but this was a few years back so it could have changed).  The price tag was the same as that of Spier but there is no comparison between the two facilities. So here is a few words on the choice of accommodation:

Normally, if it is not too expensive, try to stay in the conference hotel – you will have extra networking opportunities, especially with the keynote speakers, if you want to and you can easily and quickly go to your room to rest, fetch something or getting some work done between sessions. After the conference dinner, you do not have to drive and when the weather is terrible outside, you do not need to face it.

So, if possible, do use the conference hotel but there are also those times that you really want to be at another place than the conference. When we attended a conference in Mauritius, we definitely did not want to stay in the conference hotel because we could stay at a resort on the west coast of the island that combines work with a tropical vacation and island sunsets. We also booked with our credit card that promised a cash payback so the resort accommodation was indeed affordable and desirable.