My Education Perfect Experience - Jamie Richards

My Education Perfect Experience - Jamie Richards

My Education Perfect experience started in 2016, when I was on the search for a new worldwide competition to compete in after my great success in the World Education Games, where I was named World Champion over 6 million other competitors. It was a mission of mine to prove to myself that my success in the World Education Games was not left to chance, and was no fluke. For that reason, I searched the Internet for more science competitions that I could compete in, and I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Education Perfect Science World Championships.

I spent countless hours preparing for the Education Perfect Science Championships. I had a very positive mindset coming into the World Champs, and I knew that if I worked hard enough I could produce great results.

The competition requires competitors to answer questions correctly in order to earn points. For each correctly answered question, you earn one point. Whoever has the most points after the week, wins.

I decided to take the week off school to ensure I could produce the best results possible. I thought to compete for a week wouldn’t be too difficult, but I was totally wrong. 168 hours of your life spent focusing completely on answering as many questions as possible. There is almost nothing else in the world that worries you as much as competing for your school during that week.

By the end of the week, I finished in 5th place in the world, 3rd in Australia and 1st in Western Australia. Although most people would say this was a great achievement, I was not at all satisfied. To answer over 40 000 questions and finish 5th in the world, I felt as though this was not good enough, despite the large amounts of support I received from my family, teachers and peers.

This feeling of being unsatisfied served as a great source of motivation for the 2017 World Championships. It would serve as the greatest ingredient for what I termed “My Road to Redemption”.

The 2017 competition was a last minute decision for me - as most of my teachers would understand. Originally, I wasn’t going to compete due to my workload at school, but then a thought crossed my mind: “Do you really want to let this opportunity for redemption slip?” The answer was quite simple really. No. I wasn’t going to remain 5th place in the world; I was going to aim much higher, no matter what the cost. I wanted to be a two-time Science World Champion across two different events, and I would do whatever it took to do so.

The 7 days of competing were very tough, I was up at 4:30 in the morning and in bed at 9:30-10pm each night. When I wasn’t competing, I was planning the content that I would cover the next day. My planning proved to be essential to my success in this competition. I only stopped to eat (which was brilliant) and for toilet breaks. There was also a diet that I followed throughout the week to make sure my brain was functioning at the best of its ability.

After the gruelling week was done, I was named the Education Perfect Science World Champion for 2017. During the week, I also broke the World Record for the Science Championships by 6 000 points. I had answered 54 494 questions, and 50 001 were correct - which is equal to a result of 92% out of all questions. Holding a world record seems very unrealistic - I am still processing this myself. Once again, I had been named World Champion - but in a new competition. There is only one thing that this can show, and that is that hard work pays off.

If you were to work harder and be more dedicated than everyone else from around the world, you will become a World Champion. Many people see me win these competitions and say things like: “It’s because he’s smart” or “He is gifted”. I would love for this to be true, but I was never naturally smart - and these competitions do not rely on someone’s smarts or intelligence.

These competitions are all about outworking your opponents. It’s about outworking every body else around the world. It’s about working your butt off everyday, no matter how hard it gets. It’s about not tiring, and pushing your mind to its limits. It’s about having an unstoppable mindset. It’s about knowing that no matter what happens, you’ll be okay. It’s about dreaming big and taking risks.

The greatest part of my 2017 redemption was the amount of support I received from Bunbury Senior High School. I had only mentioned to very few people that I would be competing for a second time in the Education Perfect World Champs, but as I was competing, I had many people contact me to send through their best wishes. I felt as though I couldn’t let these amazing people down. And for that reason I told myself that there was no way I wasn’t going to win. From the second I read the kind messages of “good luck” and “you’re an inspiration” I promised myself I wasn’t going to lose. I would win for everyone that was supporting me.

When I returned back to school, I received so many congratulations, which was a very overwhelming feeling. The greatest memory I have is the smiles on everyone’s faces as I let them know that I pulled it off - that I finished first in the world once again.

There is nothing like seeing a smile on someone’s face, and knowing that you put it there. To everyone that helped me achieve my goals in 2017, thanks so, so much, and I can only hope that I can influence you to chase and achieve your dreams in the same way you influence me.

If my 2017 World Champion experience has taught me anything, it has taught me the value of having other people in your life - all my friends and family, and the entire Bunbury High community, I will forever love them with all my heart and be thankful for their great impact on my life.

- Jamie Richards