Class of 2024 Spotlight: Three Questions with Taqiuddin M. 🇪🇬

1) How do you think your education at THINK Global School has prepared you for the future?

TGS is a school that has helped me develop skills rather than learn information. Personally, I have always loved to learn new skills to keep my mind engaged. Whether it be the chemistry of baking sourdough, the way philosophy fuels art, or the popularization of self-sufficiency via home butchery, my projects at TGS were sparked by an interest in acquiring new skills. These skills were developed through the TGS project method, leading to the discovery of newfound information that genuinely blew my mind.

TGS prepared me not to take anything at face value. The flame curiosity, fostered in the pursuit of new skills, was fuelled by an active mind that broke down the fields I explored into “axioms”. Asking ‘why’ became second nature; many times, I instinctively asked ‘why?’ only for people to stare at me like a madman (specific whole examples escape my mind). Anyways, all this to say that TGS has taught me core life skills that I will carry into my post-TGS life. Things like asking others what indigo tastes like, staring at window frames to figure out how they are constructed, and learning the value of efficiency by speed running games all stem from TGS teaching me not to be tied down to a set of standards or rules. Don’t step outside the box (per se), but question it, peek to see what’s on the outside, and knock down a wall or two if need be.

2) In what ways has your perception of traditional education changed since attending Think Global School?

While applying to TGS, I saw traditional learning as a hellish system that I needed to escape at any cost. After experiencing TGS with its ups and downs, I started seeing that both TGS and traditional schools try to prepare students to tackle life. One does so by acquainting them with the systematic (often redundant) way life works, and the other does it by showing them the beauty of being peculiar while teaching them how to navigate the systems of life.

I would say TGS is more about using the bank of knowledge you attained, while traditional schooling is more about building an expansive bank of knowledge as a (hopeful) reference book for future decision-making. I understand and have experienced both approaches, and each has its own advantages. What I know for sure is that I am thankful for my ‘hellish’ traditional school experience because ultimately, like TGS, it contributed to who I am today.

3) What advice would you give to future students considering joining Think Global School?

TGS is not a biblically accurate paradise; it is more like a remote private farm in Sicily: beautiful but with its drawbacks. Traveling is a major draw-in for most applicants, but TGS is an educational approach more than it is a traveling high school. In TGS, you will be pursuing an extraordinary education that breaks most rules of how ‘learning’ should be, and that may sometimes make the process of re-assimilating with the ‘traditional’ world during college tedious.

Like my imaginary farm in Sicily, TGS requires you to put in the work for it to start bearing fruit. Ultimately, TGS is a high-risk, high-reward way of living/learning, and it is up to you, the TGS applicant, to decide whether you’re willing to risk it for a unique, meaningful system of education.