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Vitória Mário: Mathematics Student at the University of Warwick
Interview Phadria Prendergast
I moved to the UK from Portugal in 2016 and started year 10. I was able to do my GCSEs in two years and went to a really great sixth form; Brampton Manor Academy, which enabled me to get into Warwick studying Mathematics. The support at Brampton was amazing, everyone was pushed. It allowed you to believe that things are possible. Everyone was ‘on job,’ so it forced you also to be (laughs). The environment definitely pushes you. Smarter people can sometimes become complacent when they think something is easy, but in Brampton, no one gets complacent so it forces you not to.
I aspire to go into banking or consulting, but I believe that Maths gives me the opportunity to try everything. Studying Maths has made me sharper when it comes to thinking and given me quicker calculative skills, however I definitely agree that not everything I’m learning I will find useful in the future, but it does force me to be quicker.
It was always the goal to study at one of the best academic institutions and is one of the main reasons why I moved to the UK. My mother saw something in me and thought I could have a future.
In future, I’d like to create an organisation which helps young people and immigrant students like myself who move to the country and don’t often have that support in terms of learning the language and the content. I would like to be that bridge.
I would also like to help students to get into the best universities, especially helping more black female students who would like to study STEM degrees. With Mathematics, you don’t see black girls studying the subject. I’m the only black girl on my course and in my first year, we had 800 people. I only found one more black girl studying my degree.
In my sixth form, there was more of a proportion. It was 50/50 so, going from that to this was very different. I want to show an example so that those younger than me can see that it’s possible. I’ve seen more black girls coming to study Mathematics this year as undergraduates, which is nice. It’s hard, but it’s very possible.