The impossible journey: From failing first grade to Scholarship to Oxford!

4 Oct 2018 · 2 min

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1:32

In this personal testimony, the speaker shares her experience of being diagnosed with dyslexia and an auditory processing disorder, describing how learning felt like acquiring English as a foreign language. She reflects on the mixed impact of teachers—some who encouraged her and others who discouraged her—and emphasizes the importance of focusing on her strengths, particularly her spatial awareness and ability to visualize mathematics, traits common among mathematicians. She acknowledges the ongoing challenges she faces, credits her mother as a major source of inspiration and support, and underscores how these factors contributed to her academic progress toward a scholarship and admission to Oxford.

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I have been diagnosed as dyslexic and with an auditory processing disorder. It feels like you're learning English as a foreign language, a student who's just begun. Sometimes it feels like that. In my past, I've had several very influential teachers and several teachers that have really put me down. I really value the teachers in my past that have helped me get to this point, as opposed to focusing on the weaknesses. Capitalise on your strengths, on the skills and assets that you have as a person. So for me, that was my spatial awareness and my mathematical visualisation, which is fairly common along— amongst a lot of mathematicians. It can be hard. It was very difficult for me, and it still is. There are many challenges you'll face. My mum is a very inspirational figure. She has worked immensely hard, and she's the person I owe a lot of this to.