Joseph

Hello. My name is Joseph. My parents both studied in one of the best universities in America and this was one of the most impacting thing that changed my total mindset.

Since young, I’ve been intensively exposed to information. I remember my parents telling me that I was so ‘naturally gifted that I could read a novelette when I was 4 while others only could read it when they were 7.’ They also told me that ‘I was a nursery drop-out because the syllabus was too easy for me.’

When I was young, I was already introduced to, and was fascinated, by science. Everything in this natural world has to be science. Why do we fall sick? Why do metals rust? How was the atomic bomb created? All these questions have answers in Science. Naturally, I thought that the question “How do we improve our memory?” would also lie in Science.

I was very well-read about this topic “Effective Memory Techniques” and I always strived to see things in a scientific point of view. During group discussion, I suggested interviewing top scientists that majored in the human brain. I even suggested that maybe the techniques can be found in Science, so we should read up many scientific papers.

However, I found out that memory grandmasters had little knowledge about the brain. I had a mindset change, the answer lies when there’s a blend of Non-science and Science. After all, Science has not proved everything. Did Science prove the existence of humans? No.

Throughout this project, because of a mixed point of view, we got our information also from diverse points of views. For instance, we interviewed a memory grandmaster who’s not an expert in Science and we interviewed a CEO of SharpBrains which is a company that tackles the Brain, it’s memory and others from a scientific point of view. This helped us to join and incorporate different points of views for even greater results.

We also encountered many difficulties throughout this project, such as trying to get surveys or interviews and sometimes, it's really hard to obtain these. We also had a lack of time as there was a whole lot to do and we had our own busy schedule. Expectations were very high of us as this was a global competition and we wanted to win glory for our schools and nations as well. But we had advantages - we were really good friends and communication was not a problem. During group discussions, it was very constructive as all of us contributed ideas. We also had good teamwork and worked together well.