How Do Students Fund the Budapest Semester in Math Program?

[deekin]

Hopefully some of you have heard of this program and have participated in it yourself. Here's the website if you haven't heard of it before:

http://www.budapestsemesters.com/

I'm thinking about applying to this program for either the summer 2014 or fall 2014. It looks really awesome. They offer a lot of cool math courses, many of which are not offered at my school. I have met with the study abroad financial aid office at my university but she was not as helpful as I had hoped she'd be.

My primary question is how does one pay for something like this? For those of you that have done it (if any), did you apply for scholarships? Which ones? I have searched for scholarships online which much success. I found the Gilman scholarship and this thing called "Fund for Education Abroad". Does anybody have some other suggestions?

I know that federal financial aid can be applied, but that certainly won't cover the cost. I would really appreciate any direction or advice in this. Thanks.

 

[deekin]

On a related note, does anyone here have any experience at Math in Moscow? I've asked around in my own department, and apparently nobody in at least the past 10 years has gone anywhere like that. Or does anybody know of another study abroad program like that geared towards math majors?

 

[00Donut]

I really don't have an answer to your financial aid question. With my school, all I had to do was apply to financial aid as I do every year, then talk to the study abroad office and they handled everything. The programs tuition comes out of my normal tuition in my home school, and the aid I wouldn't use for room and board and meals and what not they sent to me so I could provide for myself in Hungary.

I do know that the AMS has a couple scholarships for the Moscow Program. Here's the link: http://www.ams.org/programs/travel-grants/mimoscow

The Moscow one is much smaller. From what I hear, they have about 12 or so students a semester. Whereas in Budapest, we have about 75. There's also a lot more classes to choose from.

I do know of another math "Study Abroad" program. http://www.math.psu.edu/mass/mass/2013/
Basically, students go to penn state for a semester and take three math courses. The courses vary each semester, but they usually have one in analysis, one in algebra/number theory, and one in geometry/topology. They also have a bit of information on a couple scholarships they offer on their website.

Anyways, I wish you the best of luck,

Donut.

 

[deekin]

Awesome, thanks Donut. What classes in Budapest did you take? Anything you'd particularly recommend? Were you there fairly recently?