The Future

Lately I have been thinking about it very frequently. Not only in classes like Academic Leadership, or IB Prep which we had last year, but at home. The idea of choosing Medicine as a major came to me around seventh grade, and until now it continues to interest me, and seems to grow more and more. To be able to major in medicine, I would have to stay in Brazil and graduate from college here, because if I went to the United States it would be too hard to validate my degree in order for me to work here. When I was younger, I thought I had to go to college in the United States, and my dream city was New York, I was sure I would live there. But when I decided medicine was what I wanted to work with, the dream of studying in New York was shattered. Whenever I told someone what I wanted to study, they would always have an unnecessary comment, for example: asking me if I was sure, telling me I’m going to have to study a lot or telling me it was a good choice because doctors get paid well.  First, no I am not sure, how can I be sure I chose the right career if I was in seventh grade. Second, any major you chose will make you study, and I hope you study a lot so we have trust worthy workers in the future, and finally, no, I didn’t choose this career because I hope to get a lot of money, that is not a good reason when picking a career, you are supposed to choose something you love and hope to be successful with. Together with the useless comments, there was always the heart breaking reminder, ‘You know you will have to study here right?’ At first I was sure there was something I could do to study there and work here, but after talking to several people, like doctors and professors, I finally accepted the idea of studying here, since there is the opportunity of having your residency in other places. After this amazing discovery, I was almost sure that was what I wanted to do of my life, but there is always that small fear, present in the back of our mind which makes me ask myself if I’m not making the wrong decision, if I won’t change my mind since I’m only a sophomore. This was not only present in my mind, but my parents were also unsure. So, during my break between ninth grade and tenth grade, I visited a college here in Brazil, called Universidade Positivo, and I was able to talk to the course administrator of the medicine course and ask him about my doubts and he explained to me how the course works. I was also able to visit the university and see the classrooms and labs. After that visit I was in love. I was they labs and surgery room where they practice techniques, I saw their study space, a room all about medicine with books form topics starting at bones and going all the way to each vein in your body. I was an amazing experience and it helped me a lot, since I knew that was what I wanted to study. But my biggest concern was if I was going to change my mind. This concern is still present, but yesterday, it settled since we had a guest speaker at our school that said something that was very significant. I thought it would be just another speaker talking about how we should save the planet, but he told us how he knew what he wanted to work with, and he said that the idea of becoming an urban farmer came to him when he was eleven. The fact that this idea came to him when he was young and he was able to grow up and become who he wanted to become when he was eleven really inspired me and helped me realize that if I really want something, just the fact that I am still young doesn’t mean that my decision isn’t legitimate.

Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow.

Since I won’t be going to a university out of Brazil, there is no need to apply to college because our system here is very different. But even though I won’t have to apply to college it doesn’t mean I won’t use what I am learning about college application and what recruiters are looking for. There are always job interviews, applying to internships and residencies. When it comes to those opportunities, being an academic leader will help me very much. Not only will it help me work with others, which will be a great part of the career I chose. It will also help me before in life, because after I graduate from school I will probably have to study chemistry, since it a great part of the Vestibular of medicine, and in our school it is not entirely covered. Being an academic leader will help me to prepare myself to be able to deal with a year of studying for the vestibular, in which I will be doing cursinho and studying chemistry on my own as well. This would be another reason why I am sure I’ll be able to choose this career, or any other, because I feel that I am being well prepared and when the time comes, I will be able to succeed in any choice I make. 

The Project

During this school year, we are going to be creating a personal project, in which we will be able to explore any topic that is interesting to us and that we will enjoy working with. I have been thinking about what I will choose to work with, and I have thought about two different topics that I am very interested about. One of them would be art, and I would love to have a project related to drawing and painting, since I have always enjoyed art and I’m not having art classes this year, so it would be a great opportunity to be in touch with a talent I love working with. The next topic I considered would be something related to biology and medicine, since it is another topic I really enjoy as well as something that interests me greatly, to the point I am considering becoming a doctor after I graduate. I’m not sure which one I will choose to work with, or if I might join them and create art inspired in biology and medicine related subjects. I still have to think about it and see if any of those ideas will mature to something more concrete.

I’m very excited for this new class, hoping it will help us develop new ways of studying and working in which we are able to use thing we are better at. I also hope I will be able to choose a topic and create a great project that will inspire me and that is will be something I will enjoy working with. The last thing that I hope this class helps me with is my speaking skills, and my tendency to being shy. I hope that since it is about leadership, this class helps me become a more ‘vocal leader’, so I have the possibility to be any kind of leader, form the one who inspires to the one who spreads the ideas. 

Academic Leadership

"In our first two weeks, you have read several articles, seen several videos and been engaged in several discussions related to the concept of academic leadership. At this point, and in your own words, what does the concept mean to you? What subjects or interests do you have a sophisticated, intellectual understanding of that you may want to turn into a major academic project in this class? How do people sometimes abuse academic knowledge to manipulate others? How would you feel if someone used your work to manipulate other (as Jared Diamond claims Mitt Romney has)? How can creating academically sophisticated, intellectual leaders help prevent such people from taking advantages of others the way they do? how can this created a stronger democratic society?" 

Academic leadership will teach us how to be great leaders, by our own standards and by using what we are good at. It will allow us to understand how to improve our talents in a way that will benefit both ourselves and others, since it will allow our capacity to work with a group to be improved, facilitating future projects. We were also able to learn how leadership doesn’t always come from the head managers from companies, and just because you have a good job doesn’t mean you are a great leader.  Something that was told is how leadership can come in any way and from any person, by learning about several leaders, and how they used their leadership in situations they were confronted with. For me this is very important since I’m not entirely comfortable with being a leader that stands in front of a big group and tells people what to do. I would just rather be a ‘silent leader’ that instead of telling others what to do, inspires them to do things by performing them himself.

 I believe that a leader is not created alone; one example is the Dancing Guy, who would not have been a leader if others did not follow him. But that is not the only way in which a person needs more help in order to become a leader. Another example would be the leader’s ideas; because even though a leader might have a set goal or idea, he will, or already has, been inspired by others. Those who have or will inspire the leader should also be considered leaders, since even though they did not go out and state what needed to be done; they somehow showed someone else that, and ended up motivating that person. 

"A leader always sets the trail for others to follow"

As this picture says: “A leader always sets the trail for others to follow”. In this way, the person who inspired someone else to star leading is also a leader, because they helped create the trail that should be followed. Even though I believe that ‘silent leaders’, as I would like to call them, are important, I also agree that the leaders that state their leadership by going out and actually leading people with their words are as important, since without a ‘vocal leader’, which will be their name, several actions would not have been taken, and ideas would not have spread. So, both the ‘silent leader’ as well as the ‘vocal leader’ are needed for something to happen, but both of them are leaders and both are able to show leadership, only in different ways, that please their personalities and talents.

We have also learned how people sometimes abuse academic knowledge to manipulate others by misrepresenting ideas and using them to support their ideas, this way using an illegitimate source of support. One example is Mitt Romney, who thought that by using Jared Diamond’s argument, it would only support his idea, but against his will, his representation of Diamond’s book only harmed him and his idea. If my ideas are any day, misrepresented like what happened in this case between Mitt Romney and Jared Diamond, I would be very offended, since my ideas would be used wrongly. Also, I believe I would do something similar to Diamond’s response, since instead of confronting the person who distorted my ideas, rephrasing them and explaining what I really meant would have a better result.  This is where academic leadership would fit, since a professional with this knowledge would know how to deal with the problem, without making a fool of himself, and instead, by re-stating his idea and explaining how it was misunderstood. If more people were academic leaders, then I think mistakes and misrepresentations like this one would be less common, and people would know how to support their ideas without damaging another person’s word, or how to protect their idea with strong and stable arguments.