Lizaveta Manhulina,
Phase II Student,
MSc FU Berlin,
BSc Belarusian State University, Minsk

“Berlin, Berlin, the city of a dream,
 Where I found my happiness and maybe even a team”

These two lines come from a song that my BMS friends and I asked Chat GPT to write about our experience in Berlin as a friend group of aspiring mathematicians united by BMS. However cheesy the song turned out to be, that sentence does hit home: Berlin did become my dream city, where I found the most wonderful people who I now would proudly call my BMS family.

It all started with a wish to find a great master's program with a full scholarship. Little did I know back then where it would lead me. BMS is way, way more than a scholarship program. Every step of the way I was supported and guided by my BMS mentors – university professors who are assigned to you from the very start. Moreover, the other very important point of support is the BMS Office. As an immigrant, you face many challenges that are far from academic ones. No matter what it is, the BMS Office tries their best to assist. Just a small example: when I was looking for a therapist, the BMS Office offered help calling different therapists on the phone. Such a level of support is something that so many international students outside of BMS with whom I spoke don't have and absolutely crave.

For me personally, another very important characteristic of the program was and still is its flexibility. I was scared to commit too early to some particular research area only to find out that it was the wrong choice. BMS gives you time and encourages your search for true passion. I know now that these are not just pretty words: coming here, my initial plan was to dedicate myself to numerics for partial differential equations, yet today I am doing my Phase II in combinatorial optimization. Such a change of interest was not only possible to develop in the framework of the BMS but was supported fully and wholeheartedly.

Last but not least come the BMS events. While staying in Berlin, not only did I attend MATH+ Friday talks from
so many different areas of mathematics, but I also took part in soft-skills seminars such as voice and speech training or mental health in academia workshop. Moreover, a highly inspirational event for me has been Kovalevskaya lunches, where in a very cozy atmosphere we meet influential female mathematicians, share some food and chat informally. In such a way for example I met a Fields Medal winner Maryna Viazovska and a mathematical olympiads legend Lisa Sauermann!

So much about the letters M and S in BMS, now I feel the need to speak about the B. I certainly was not choosing the program based on the location, and yet somehow I ended up loving it. Berlin and BMS share a lot of qualities: a great sense of freedom, a sense of belonging as an immigrant, rich variety of things to offer. Here I can breathe with my full lungs. Here I can dance all night long, visit a great exhibition the day after, and polish it off with an edgy theater piece in the evening. The problem is rather that there is so much going on, that it's hard to make a choice -- what they call "die Qual der Wahl" in German. And I believe that the city and the program where "die Qual der Wahl" is the greatest of your troubles is totally worth a shot. ;)

Published in February 2025