Hi! Welcome to my blog, which I hope to regularly update over the course of my time in Budapest, Hungary. I plan to be in the city from January 10 until the end of May 2018. If you’re planning on visiting the city, please get in contact (larsonnd@whitman.edu) because I’ll be sure to have advice and recommendations!

This semester I will be enrolled in Budapest Semesters in Mathematics (BSM), a program first organized by Paul Erdős, László Lovasz, and Vera T. Sós (exciting names in math, I assure you) in 1985. Since that year, the program has gained a reputation as a rigorous and unique mathematical experience for North American students studying abroad. The program’s professors are faculty of Eötvös University, the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Budapest University of Technology and Economics, but they come together in the building of College International in Pest for BSM. And while classes are taught in English, the process of learning is distinctly Hungarian, and the course offerings are much wider than at most liberal arts colleges. This semester, I am taking Topology, Combinatorics, Problem-Solving, Cryptography and Hungarian.