International Students Testimonials

Lucas Sussumu Dornelas Saito, Brazil

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (National Research University)

The best and most challenging experience of my entire life so far

About two years ago, if someone had asked me where would I imagine myself in the following years I think I would never think of Russia as the answer, however, it is my second home now. It all began when I saw a post in a group of a social network, which was telling about the “Phystech International Olympiad”, I thought it would be interesting to try doing it. I had no expectations whatsoever that I would get a good grade, but after a few weeks I received an email congratulating me about my results, and due to these results I could apply for a scholarship in MIPT, that’s where everything started to change.

After weeks of searching about MIPT and its reputation globally I decided to apply. The following months were full of expectations and anxiety wondering if I would receive the so wanted scholarship, and around July of 2019 I received the excellent news that I would be able to study in the university. The first few months in Russia were really rough, the weather was really cold for someone like me who was born in Brazil, furthermore the language was not the easiest part either, I struggled a lot in the beginning to understand what people were talking, although I had prepared myself studying the Russian language two months before coming to Russia.

I think Russia is one of if not the best in the area of mathematics and physics, some Russian books are even used in Brazil as material for preparation to some hard university tests, and here in MIPT is no different. I can tell that level of education is really high around here, I was really surprised about the quality of books related to math and how deep and rigorous the math is taken into account in tests here in the university.

I’m in the first year of computer science now, and so far if I could describe in three words my experience of living and studying in Russia would be: “challenging”, “shaurma” and “cold”. After you start understanding the Russian language and start speaking some basic phrases daily it all start to work out. Here I made friends from all over the world, and now we can grow together and help each other with anything. I hope the next years will be just as fun and interesting as this first one, and I’m looking forward to be a better and better speaker of Russian.