My name is
Marina Dias Ramos de Macedo, I am an Architecture and Urban Planning
undergraduate student at the Universidade Federal de Campina Grande
(UFCG) and when I was 20, I participated on the Science Without Borders
program between 2013/2014 in Leicester, during one year and three months.
Since I returned to Brazil, I presented at the
university the work I develop there, encouraging students to have
this experience, and I am currently participating in an international
competition with the same work.
Without any doubts the
experiences of studying and living abroad, were the most intense and striking I
have ever had in my life. It was far beyond what I had expected. I struggled a
lot, learned a lot more, and I believe that should be something to be
experienced by every student. Living in a totally different culture,
expands and adds values and thoughts which we will carry on our life
experience and transforms us.
Before I
started my studies at the university I had already had the experience
of spending time studying English in Cambridge and returned to Brazil
with the certainty that I would return to England to study part of my
graduation, though I had no idea how this would be possible.
Well, shortly
after I started my studies at the university came up the
Science without Borders program and soon I tried, but did not have the minimum
percentage of my course completion demanded to participate in it. After finally
getting the minimum time required, I got the opportunity, and joined the
program having as my main objective, to expand as much as possible my
academic knowledge and professional skills in order to
return to Brazil and use it in our reality.
I studied at De
Montfort University and getting there, I noticed that the difficulty
would be bigger than I had imagined, besides the little time I had
attended in Brazil, I was also the youngest in university time
among Brazilians, and studied as if it was my senior year at college.
Also were totally different educational systems, I had never thought that a
thing as clear in my mind as architecture is could be addressed in such
different ways.
In the first
three months of university I was totally lost, trying to do correctly what
was asked, but always had the sensation of doing things the wrong way and my
tutor never seemed satisfied with what I did. It was as if I had no control, as
much as I tried I could not understand and match what was asked.
I went back home many days sad and other
cried talking to my parents, saying that was not working and thank
God they always said me that I had gone to win.
I
always liked to travel in my ideas, but was not sure how to express
them and in one more try I decided to risk with a new
model. And that day instead of spending 5 minutes in advice with my tutor
Manos, in which most of the time I often spoke, I did not say anything and he spent
about 30 minutes non-stop saying how much my idea was brilliant, and a phrase
in particular struck me a lot, he said: this is not a building,
it’s a feeling. I remember that at the end of the
conversation I went to the bathroom with my friend who was next to me
on the advice, and spent a lot of time jumping right in disbelief that I
actually had achieved.
The
university worked with
continuous presentations by different people, and my tutor
always told me to look for different ways to develop and show my
ideas, so that people could also understand it. He always made me very
free to think, before I felt lost, but then I found out it was an optimal way
to create and explore my capacity.
In the
different presentations that had, I heard the tutor Chris that
was evaluating me once, saying that I was fine, but should be careful
not to lose the way with such an intense proposal. Another day, another
tutor Jamileh said that initially she had found my concept very
vague, but my building materialized my idea so much that I'd
convinced her it could not be better, and a guest architect said he
did not know if in my life I could create such a brilliant thing
again.
Anyway, I
finished the course and concluded the year with first-class
honours and if I could send a message to each one today that was part
of my teaching there, I would say to Chris, thank you for keeping my feet
on the ground and show that we are always subject to risks, Jamileh, I learned
that I have the ability to convince and change opinions, the architect, this
was only the beginning and my tutor Manos thank you, and say that I
adopted his phrase as the way I want to do architecture, going beyond a
building, creating a feeling.
