By Anastasiia Minenkova

Most of my graduate years were during the Covid-19 pandemic. I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. The isolation and lack of social interaction took a toll on my mental health. I missed the simple joys of meeting other people, sharing ideas, and being a part of a community. Once everything went back to normal, I felt out of place at conferences because I was in a room full of strangers I did not know how to connect with. Wanting to change this, I was looking for an outlet that would help me to create a community of my own. I found it! I joined Project NExT.

On Tuesday August 6th, as I embarked on my journey to MathFest in Indianapolis, I knew I would feel differently about this conference. It started as I was boarding my flight to Indianapolis and I saw a familiar face across the aisle. Once we landed, I asked: “Are you by any chance going to MathFest?” Guess what? The answer was “Yes!” This was a Project NExT fellow who I had not seen since last year’s MathFest.

After arriving at the venue, I crashed the Blue’24 cohort’s event and saw a couple of familiar faces. The room was filled with lively conversations, warm smiles, and a sense of camaraderie. I could not wait for our part to begin. Once it was the time for my cohort to arrive, I started seeing familiar faces; people were meeting each other after a long semester break. Finally, I headed to the room where the two cohorts’ meet-and-greet reception was.

All the Project NexT leaders were there. Trish Hammer greeted me at the door, Stephanie Salomone noticed that I changed my hairstyle (yes, this was important to me), and Christine Kelley made sure she talked to everyone to see how they were doing. I felt seen. After the reception, people started to break into smaller groups, and I joined one group where I met a couple more people from the Blue’24 cohort. When I was thinking about calling it a night, I instead ended up seeing Dr. Lauren Rose who was there with other colleagues and students. She introduced me to everyone, and we had a heartfelt conversation about our experiences in academia.

The next day, I was excited to go to the workshops organized by my cohort. All the topics were remarkably interesting, so I wished I had a Time-Turner to use so I could attend all the overlapping events, just like Hermione in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I learned the basics of applying for grants, the steps to create and support a mathematical student community, and that “scaffolding” is the key to helping students become independent thinkers. At the end I made a note to myself: “Remind students and yourself that learning new things could be physically exhausting.”

At the end of the day, during the graduation from Project NExT as a part of the Teeny-Weeny Greeny-Beany Twenty-Threeny’s cohort, I realized just how big my circle is now.

When the MathFest program started on Thursday, I began to run around the convention center (still wishing I had Hermione’s Time-Turner). I gave my talk at the fantastic session on Quantum Computation in the Undergraduate Curriculum. Thanks to the organizers, the session was very engaging and inclusive. I felt validated and that the work I did mattered.

On Friday, I was lucky enough to serve as a judge for the students’ posters (Did you see the line this year?!). Then, I was excited to see the puppy hour again this year. These and many other things make MathFest an incredibly unique experience for mathematics meetings. I had an opportunity to reconnect with people from various stages of my life who were important to me, from my graduate student mentor from UConn to Pup Horst who encouraged me to write this post.

As I mingled with the crowd, I started to feel a sense of belonging I had not felt in years. The shared experiences, the mutual support, and the genuine interest from others made me realize that I was not alone anymore. For the first time since the pandemic began: “I had a feeling that I belonged. I had, had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.”

Anastasiia Minenkova joined the University of Hartford in 2023. She works in applied mathematics on the intersection of numerical analysis and perturbation theory, with applications of numerical linear algebra to quantum computing. She has experience working with undergraduates on research projects and mentoring students, and she strives to promote equity and inclusion in math through her teaching and service.