During the spring of my junior year I spent a semester in Budapest attending the Budapest Semester of Mathematics program. It was definitely one of my best experiences in college.

The program is very strong academically and will expose you to some very advanced topics and very advanced mathematics. The course in Advanced Algebra will probably be the most challenging course in my years of college. The program features a different learning pace from Mudd. Most courses have weekly assignments and there is really a lot of time to work on the problems and study the theory. And as you are thinking how to find the Lebesgue points of the characteristic function of the Cantor set there is the incredible city of Budapest around you. A great refuge but a great stimulus as well for your math work.

The city is rich in all the terms. If you enjoy classical music then Budapest is definitely the city where you want to be. During the semester I went to about 20 operas and about 20 instrumental music performances ranging from baroque music to very recent music. Every month there is a free publication that lists all the musical activity in every theatre of the city. So you can plan the Cosi’ Fan Tutte on Wednesday night at the Operahaz and the Bartok Violin Concerto at the Zeneakademia on Thursday night. And if you come in the spring you will also be there for the Tavaszi festival (The Spring music Festival) the most important musical event of the year. There is also the possibility to join the Bartok Bela choir. Joining the Choir is a must as it gives the possibility to meet Hungarian students, sing masses in the Mittel-European Latin and pieces in Hungarian, and hear the choir director shouting and screaming in Hungarian. We also got to perform on the opening night of the Tavaszi festival in front of members of the Hungarian government the US ambassador to Hungary and other members of the diplomatic body of Hungary. That evening was definitely the highlight of my musical experience in Hungary. I can still remember the beautiful music by Kodaly and Beethoven, the energetic orchestra director, the different members of the choir from all over Europe, the long rehearsal with the full orchestra, the excitement for the very special evening ahead of us.

But there are many other aspects of the Hungarian experience that deserve to be mentioned. It was extremely interesting to explore Hungarian culture and learn about the poets who inflamed a revolution in 1848, the golden period under the dual monarchy, and the forty years of communist regime under Kadar. But most of all it is interesting to observe the present transition from a period of communism and dictatorship to a democratic regime and to a free economy. And whereas the new economy is shining with promises of better quality of life and improvement in services, it also brings poverty, social differences, unemployment, and ultimately sadness. Probably this sadness so visible everywhere in Hungary and so irremediable is the most visible sign of the transition. But this sadness is somewhat absent from the younger generation. The city is filled with nightclubs and discos. Everywhere in the city you can see poster advertising the next great party of the weekend and the next guest DJ spinning the favorite house music at the most important clubs. Discos and nightclubs play an extremely important role in the life of Europeans so make sure not to miss out.

The last thing that I wanted to mention is that you will be meeting some really interesting people. The program has about 45 math majors from all over North America. And at this point I can remember countless evenings of great conversations and great fun.

It was definitely an extremely positive semester and some of my best memories from college are connected to this past semester. In some sense I feel that this brief communication cannot in any way represent all the aspects of the semester that were important to me and that affected me. But trying to describe all of this would be too long.