What was your favorite subject in school?
For me it wasn’t just one subject, and it wasn’t the same during all my school years. And definitely the teacher contributed a lot for my interest in any discipline. But I ended up studying Computer Science and that has a lot of mathematics involved. So, I think this was my favorite subject overall. There was one event though that gave me lessons for life.
In my sixth grade I participated in the Mathematics Olympiad. The school chose a small group of students to represent it, and I was lucky enough to be among them. They offered training after regular classes so that we would do better in the exams. It was maybe the first time that I received real and professional advice on how to achieve a goal. As a first lesson I learned the importance of repetition to assimilate a concept. The crucial task for us was to not waste time in simple things, we should know them by heart. I learned during that period that I should repeat something until I had it internalized. After that, we should dedicate our efforts on the day of the exam to solve the real hard problems.
Our teacher was very strict. He gave dozens of lists of exercises for us to do at home. We also had to finish them at classes set aside specially for this. He said that he would demand a lot of us in the weeks before the event. But that in the day right before it, we shouldn’t open any book or try to remember any formula. If we tried to do that, and had any follow-up questions, we couldn’t solve them in time. This would make us more nervous and affect our performance. We should rest our brains and not use the reserve of potassium we had in it. Our task was only to relax with whatever game or physical activity we wanted. That was the second important lesson I learned then. I try to study everything that I can in advance, but not in the day before an exam.
Another thing that contributed for me liking mathematics was the feeling of being part of something bigger. We were just a handful of fellow students hand picked among hundreds of others. We were working together to achieve a goal. For sure we were competitors between ourselves. But at the same time, we were a team. We were competing with other schools in our city. After that, we competed at state and country levels. But in the end we wanted to see our institution being celebrated. Even if I did not go further, I was happy to see any of my colleagues advance in the competition.
All in all, mathematics became something that I ended up enjoying. I am sure this happened more because of the lessons I learned for my life through it. And not just because of the discipline itself.