Could you please introduce yourself?
Hello my name is Anastasia, I come from Russia and before coming to the Bachelor of Science I lived in Moscow. I am a second year student in the Bachelor of Science at Ecole Polytechnique and I'm following the double-major Math & Computer Science.
Why did you choose the Bachelor of Science of Ecole Polytechnique?
In my last year of high school, I’ve been searching for international programs oriented in mathematics and computer science. A friend recommended the program because she also had a friend who studied there in the previous year.
It was fully taught in English and it was really advanced mathematics and computer science and the alumni connections make it extremely easy to find a job afterwards. I enjoyed how mathematics and computer science are blended together in a way which really allows to explore the subject from different sides for exemple you have machine learning which is computer science and linear algebra which is directly connected to some of the concepts introduced in machine learning so the problem is really self-contained in that sense.
How is this international environment?
It’s the first time that I’ve found myself in an environment with so many different cultures and people coming from all over the world. It brings some additional novelty in the community because you can discuss with people and they share their experience about something you’ve considered, something you’ve never heard of. In some classes like debating for exemple, when we need to give exemple of some situation occurring in our countries, they bring exemples from Chile and Portugal and Romania and Africa and I just learn so much.
Are you part of any sports, art or music association on campus?
There are a lot of communities, they’re called committees run by students. Personally I’m on the board of their running committee (RunX) and hiking committee (HikX). I organize or co-organise them. For the running I recently made a night run so it was on Friday night so no stress for the next day. We meet at midnight and we ran across Palaiseau with head lamps, it was really cool. I try to participate in other committees activities for exemple the math committees. They have regular seminars where they invite PhD students or professors to talk about various forms of mathematics
What would be a great memory that you would like to share with future students?
Last year, during campaign week, there was a really cool event : a pizza making competition! I’m personally not a great chef so when we showed up with my friends to the foyer to make our first pizza, I was a bit scared but it turned out to be very fun because we decorated it, experimented with ingredients and décor. And in the end we had a math teacher and an analysis professor to come and evaluate our pizza in the way they graded our homework. It was quite a perspective to get.
What are your ambitions for next year?
Right now, I’ll say I tend to consider a career in academia a researcher in mathematics and computer science. For the masters I want to pick something really research oriented probably either the PhD tracks at IP Paris or one of the programs in Paris because I really want to stay in France. For exemple the Sorbonne program or the Paris Nord University, they have masters in pure and applied mathematics. France is the best place in Europe to do math. For exemple there is CNRS and a lot of cool labs all around France like Paris, Bordeaux and Marseille. You can really pick the branch of mathematics that interest you and see what university is going to suit you the best.
Any piece of advice to future Bachelor students that you would like to share?
One of the most important piece of advice I can give is not to compare yourself with others! People in the BX they come from all different backgrounds so some of them are winners of Olympiads others so the idea is to focus on yur progress and to compare yourself with yourself from 3 weeks ago for exemple. As long as you progress you can have build an amazing career and have amazing opportunities.