Muhammad
“I feel like I belong here,... You see people from every color and background,... “
Muhammad found a promising future in the midst of uncertainty when he immigrated to Budapest during the COVID pandemic. After graduating as a technical support engineer in January 2021, he sought out for opportunities outside of his native country, India. Muhammad talks about what his experience has been like since then, the magic his new city has to offer, and what he hopes the future holds for him in Hungary.
“My name is Muhammad Yasir Alsaif and I belong to Lucknow, India. I studied at Aligarh Muslim University in India for my electrical engineering degree and started a job in my profession after the degree. I found it interesting in the beginning, but I did not feel very comfortable, and I started to realize that I am not made for this. There must be more meaning to all my effort that I did to become an engineer, so I decided to study abroad. I was not financially very strong but luckily, I got a full scholarship at BME Budapest in September 2018. I was not alone… some of my friends from my university in India also came on the same scholarship, which made life a lot easier in the early days when you are settling down at a new place. I never felt like a foreigner or outsider because I feel people here in Budapest do not care where you are from and they just mind their own business.”
“I feel like I belong here, I know the places very well in Budapest, I know all the public transport. There are times when you can be upset or stressed and Budapest is an ideal city that can help you get away from all that. You can go sit beside The Danube River or just walk around the city and enjoy the beautiful architecture this city has. I really liked what Budapest has to offer and that is why I decided to live and work in Budapest after completing my studies. It was not easy because of COVID, I did some jobs after that but finally I got the opportunity to work at the E-ton and technical support engineer which is related to my field. I am personally very satisfied with the job and the work life balance, especially compared to my experience in India, and the environment here is also completely international. You see people from every color and background, so you get to learn a lot. You learn about the ground realities which are very different from what we see in the news.”
“As for my future, I want to continue my job and live here in Budapest. We have a good opportunity to grow within the present job and I feel very encouraged as a foreigner to grow and come forward. That is why I see my future very secure, and I am very optimistic about my future here. I never thought of achieving all this. That is why now, I am very confident that I can progress a lot in my career.”
All photos by: Qasid Saleh Ahmed
