A variety of programmes for foreign students at this Hungarian top university

Attila Baumann, leader of the IMT program organizing group, introduces himself and talks about his work within the mentor team. Here is the unchanged interview with him from the website of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, BME.

Please introduce yourself as a mentor! How long have you been working with the mentor team? Why do you enjoy being a member of the community?

I joined the team in February 2022, so I have been a member of the community for over two years now. My main motivation was to make new friends, learn about different cultures, and help the students. The team is an extremely welcoming community, and even from the first weeks, I felt like we have been friends for ages, which hasn’t changed since. I really enjoy spending time with them and the international student community, it’s always uplifting. Throughout my university years, I definitely want to be an active member of the team.

What do you consider the most important tasks of the mentor team?

We are the first point of contact for students arriving in the country, so it’s important for them to feel they can rely on us with their problems, especially navigating the administrative maze in the first weeks and months.

In my opinion, our most important task is to create a friendly and inclusive atmosphere. Alongside facilitating socialization, it’s crucial that we can provide assistance and guidance in official matters and health issues. I think the most important thing is for the mentor team to be a stable point of support for students during their stay in the country.

Photo: B. Geberle

What tasks do you perform within the team?

After becoming a mentor, I joined two subgroups: one dealing with official matters (Documents group) and the other which organises programs (Program group). For the past eight months, I have been working as the leader of the program organizing group, no longer participating in the other workgroup. As the group leader, I mainly coordinate the work processes in the background for the past months, with less time to directly participate in organizing. We organize monthly programs and discuss them at the end of each month. For larger events like the International Week, I try to assist new main organizers with my own experiences, but I also try to support the group in the organization of smaller events. I consider integrating newly joined members as my main tasks currently. Additionally, I aim to deepen relationships among the group members by organizing more team-building programs.

In addition to leading the program organizing group, I am also a dormitory mentor. I live in the dormitory for foreign scholarship-holder students at BME, and there is work for me here as well. There are two of us living here from the mentor team, and we strive to bridge the gap between the students and the dormitory management. If students encounter any issues, they can come to our rooms, and we try to find a solution as quickly as possible.