Lost & Found: Maria Lazou, Ukraine
Lost & Found: Maria Lazou, Ukraine
Lost & Found: Maria Lazou, Ukraine
Our ongoing animated series “Lost & Found” features international students who share the journey from their homeland to Boston University. They talk about what they’ve left behind and one thing that has helped them forge a new life at BU.
In the latest installment, we hear from Maria Lazou (ENG’22), a biomedical engineering student from Ukraine, who grew up in a close-knit family in the Kiev suburbs. Lazou developed an interest in biomedical engineering after a family member suffered a serious neurological illness that doctors there were unable to diagnose.
Lazou knew that to pursue her dream, she would have to study abroad, as opportunities in her home country were severely limited. She chose BU’s College of Engineering, she says, because it was “super different from what I had back home.” For the first time, she found herself living in a big city and attending a large school. In her school in Kiev, there were just nine students in her grade.
“It’s not easy to be an international student here,” Lazou says. “When I came here it was harder than I expected it to be.” She initially had a hard time finding a place for herself on campus. But she remembered how much she loved volunteering back home with her father at a local orphanage for blind children, and she decided she needed to resume volunteering. So she joined Engineering Brigades @ BU, a chapter of Global Engineering Brigades, which sends college students from across the globe to developing countries to help develop and construct clean water systems.
Joining the club proved a defining moment in Lazou’s college experience. Through the club, she met a group of friends who share her passion for helping others. And a weeklong service trip to Honduras only deepened her connection to her fellow students.
“Even though I am far away from home, I can still do things that I love, I can still have a family I love,” she says.
This Series
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