Moving from a city or state to attend a graduation course is the reality of many Brazilian students. The last Demographic Census conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2010, indicated that 29.2% of Higher Education students studied in a city different from their city of origin. The implementation of the Unified Selection System (Sisu) facilitated this change, as students no longer need to go to another city to take entrance exams for many public universities. Among the young people contemplated by the Instituto TIM-OBMEP Scholarships, it is not different: several scholars left their parents’ house to take their dream course, with the support of IT-OBMEP Scholarships.
In the family of Ricardo Vidal Teixeira, both he and his sister moved from Piraúba-MG to Juiz de Fora-MG to study at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF). Ricardo’s sister is in her last year of the Pharmacy course and receives scholarships granted by UFJF. On the other hand, the student of the first year of Civil Engineering counts on the IT-OBMEP Scholarships. “My father’s income alone was not enough to keep both of us in Juiz de Fora,” explains Ricardo, who uses the scholarship to pay rent, bills, course materials and personal expenses. “It helps a lot, because living here is not cheap.” The student’s father is a driver in the Piraúba City Hall and his mother is a housewife. Ricardo received six gold medals and one silver medal at the Brazilian Public School Math Olympics (OBMEP), and he now helps his younger brother – a 6th grade student – to study for his first participation in OBMEP.
Fabiane Sene da Luz, from the small municipality of Unistalda-RS, with 2,450 inhabitants, was the only awarded student of her school in the OBMEP during the period she studied there, having won a bronze medal and three honorable mentions. As her parents have health problems and cannot work, Fabiane and her three siblings contribute to the family income. The scholarship gave her the opportunity to move to Santa Maria-RS to attend the Chemical Engineering course at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM). “The scholarship was a chance for me to be able to stay in the university, given the situation of my family. They could not keep me here,” she says. With the benefit, Fabiane bought a notebook and buys study materials. She uses a part of the remaining amount to help her family and saves the other part for when she graduates from college and moves out of town.
With four gold, one silver and two bronze medals at OBMEP, Edmar Servante Linares Júnior left Adamantina-SP in 2014 to attend the Mechanical Engineering course at the University of São Paulo (USP), in the capital of São Paulo. Due to difficulties and financial issues, he ended up putting the course on hold. “I was robbed twice, I did not have peace of mind, and the costs of living in the city are very high,” he says. In 2016, he took an entrance exam again for USP, but this time to São Carlos-SP. With the scholarship, he can share the rent of the apartment with a colleague, pay for personal expenses and help his parents – his mother is a housewife and his father is unemployed. The scholarship also allows Edmar to dedicate himself exclusively to studies, since the course is full-time. “If I had to work, I’d have to put the course on hold. It would not be possible for me to work and get approved in the subjects,” he says.
