When I was 14 years old, I moved from a medium size city in the countryside of Sao Paulo to one of the biggest city in the world – Sao Paulo. The reason I moved the town was to go to a top high school, which would lead me to a top-university. And I was really excited about it. So the first high-school I got in was Etapa, in which I got to know the real gap that existed in the education, that is, I took classes for science competition but they were really hard to be understood, and I deeply regretted this fact, blaming myself. Then I moved in the middle of the school year to Colégio Bandeirantes, because I thought previous school didn’t prepare me entirely well in various aspects, including social. I started attending a not-so-welcoming class but I was happy and motivated and I really wanted to excel myself. Until I found out I wasn’t the best of the class, actually I was far from it. Even so I struggled and tried to learn and absorb the best I could.
Because Bandeirantes students are ranked according to grades and divided into classes, at first moment I thought I could go to the “first classroom” but when I knew I would be going to the “second classroom” in the second year of my high school I wasn’t that bad, in fact, I was really eager to learn more and more and push myself. I also got into diverse projects – theater, Spanish, complementary classes, philosophy, a so called “special English program”, etc. Probably I thought I could finally be a multi-task super-boy. My grades got better also, they weren’t spectacular but it was getting better.
I have to say at this point about the plans I had about my future. I wanted to become a doctor and I also wanted to study in the US, go to a top-school like Stanford or Yale. But not only my SAT-English scores weren’t enough or some burocratic aspects that differs from Brazilian system (as pre-med, scholarship), the path for me to pursue a top-school was blurry. I saw so many people that had flabbergasting grades that I thought maybe I wasn’t meant for that.
At the second term of my second year, after my comeback from Germany, I quit almost all the extracurricular courses to focus on academics. I thought it was the thing to be done and I hadn’t lost my dream of studying abroad (after Germany I was considering Germany as well). My grades were up high, again, not absurdly high, but it was pretty good and I was proud of myself.
Then the third and the last year came, it was the decision year because in the end of that year I would have to take a large amount of tests to get accepted into a university. Although things went well in the first 2 months and my efficiency was the best ever in my school life (for example, I was top-10 of school testing simulation for biological studies), I faced an issue – the decision of which course to be trailed. And I had to decide it soon (we don’t have flexibility as in the north-American colleges). Probably this nerve-wrecking problem was the genesis of a turbulent year. In the end I only applied to medicine and I failed on all of the entrance exams.
And I had no trust on me anymore regarding top-school.
OK. 2009 wasn’t my year. So I got into something like “prep-schools” called cursinho here. It was a big disappointment for me particularly because I realized I wasn’t that brilliant or at least the circumstances weren’t helping.
I know I shouldn’t call it like this but it was the second year I was doing nothing except for studying and I was sad I didn’t have any project, so I remember this period of life as a “lost year”. But ok, I studied everyday and tried to do what I could, I even became famous among the cursinho because (not a savvy action maybe but definitely it was fun) I sang in front of everyone (with my weird voice, I love to sing though). Anyway I applied that year to a myriad of faculties and I was accepted in all of them that I wanted.
I chose medicine at Unicamp because it was the most difficult to be in, but I wasn’t fulfilled, even it was a Brazilian and Latin-American top school, it was far for being a MIT or Cambridge and I knew I wanted to be part of something bigger. There was motivation regarding helping people and improving their quality of life also but they were just dim for me because of basic science studies.
As you can see in a other text I wrote (http://www.empreendersaude.com.br/2011/12/as-excelentes-reflexoes-de-um-jovem-academico-de-medicina-imperdivel/) , the university is like a hub to bolster not only academic accomplishments but to revamp you to have different experiences, that you can connect it later (remember connecting the dots! Steve Jobs said it). I didn’t measure it, but probably I was the person who most participated in a sort of experiences that could expand my horizon in my university class: I attended hospital to see daily med-student and doctors quotidian – ER, Surgery, clinics, exams, I got in contact with professors of faculty of economics and center of bioengineering – just asking people – who do you recommend for me to speak with? I was in the architecture institute to participate in classes and for the architectural week. I went to art institute to have someone to help me play the piano and to see if there are interesting projects I could work on. And I started French, and took entrepreneurship lectures and went to a social entrepreneurship conference, etc. I just didn’t want to be stuck on the academics (and I founded the junior enterprise also). And then the first year was over.
I had this amazing opportunity to study German and French during the university vacation, and one thing that I am proud to say is that I am able to communicate in 6 languages.
So the second year started, poor mom, I complained so much about med studies, I am so sorry. During the first term I had different projects but a lot of them failed – I applied for global entrepreneurship academy and participated in a few competition like Premio Jovens Inspiradores, Competicao Choice, Social entrepreneurship event, desafio Unicamp, desafio Sebrae – they all failed (thus I wasn’t satisfied with the med studies that was basically memorization of tens of words or diagrams – I was extremely upset about it). One nice thing that happened is that I was invited to join EmpreenderSaude and collaborated with them (www.empreendersaude.com.br), which is a leading Brazilian group that buoys up the health entrepreneurship in Brazil and Latin America and buttresses these entrepreneurs. And also I was accepted to attend IDDS (www.iddsummit.org) 2012, which was founded by D-Lab from MIT and combines design thinking with social impact. There were people from several different countries and we all worked together for a month in a project. There were 9 of them but mine was flooring. We developed an affordable, beautiful, easy to clean and easy to be made tiles and it was a great experience.
Now I am at the second semester of 2012 and I am planning to go to Canada do a study program. University of Toronto awaits me so does the immunology lab. I hope to be preeminent in every aspects.
What I want to say is: don’t underestimate yourself, maybe for a high-scholar who is only submitted to an intense academic program it is difficult to be unraveled at a first glance, but everyone is has own unique characteristics. And you have to accept yourself and do your utmost. Don’t expect people stroking you, in the end (I know this is a cliché but it’s a nice cliché) you are fighting against yourself. The moment you start going out of your comfort zone, serendipity is meant to happen.
If you want to go to, say, top school but you don’t feel you are good enough, just believe more in yourself, there is more in life than just A+ or honor courses in this life, and I am sure they don’t want just a robot now. It’s a pity I only figured it out now. You’ve got to see you have your own quality and work on it, whatever it is, if it’s juggling, making others laugh, singing opera, etc they are all awesome. Thus fails are totally normal, don’t expect yourself to be a person with 100% of success on the things you do, it’s just normal and failure makes you always stronger and wiser. Just keep growing.
Sometimes you are going to feel yourself miserable and it will seem that everything around you is despicable, and maybe blame yourself of not being able to accomplish and achieve things. Maybe it’s going to startle or bewilder you, but I want to give you one metaphor that I came up thanks to my family: We are all born with motors, some get a jet engine, some a car engine and some a scooter engine, thus there are a unnumbered different horsepower, torque and other qualities as volume of gas tanks. Some fly as fast as stealth but some move in a tranquil way like riding a bicycle. And in this metaphor, I want to point out that one thing that might be true is that if you want to soar, or make any sort of improvements what you have to do is a halt. Perhaps stopping is a great tool for you to do the maintenance, correct the errors and customize it so that you can attain the best performance on the next journey. And mind that the journey is important, so observe the scene around you. It might be exquisite and help you to have deeper insights and ideas, or maybe you’ll feel compelled to slow down and take a photo or even appreciate what is going on, or even you may go to a village and stay with the locals and appreciate that breathtaking lake. So these halt, recovering energy and watch things around you is important.
One last proposal is: let’s try to be less anxious, I am not talking about good anxiety but the anxiety that is harmful and that makes you feel overwhelmed. Let’s try to enjoy what is offered to us and continue soaring. You’ll see that your potential will be released better.
Good journey!
Tymo Nakao
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