One of the fortunate experiences that has groomed me a lot was of Buraq Camp.

This was an informal

educational program of 10 days in which 40 students were selected from all over the country through
competitive examination. I got the opportunity to get lectures from experts in various fields ranging
from Astronomy to Future technology. Meeting Pervez hoodbhoy (renowned Pakistani Physicist and
Mathematician) further exhilarated my interest to choose Mathematics as my future academic goal.
Furthermore, rigorous activities and astounding lectures on Artificial Intelligence encouraged me to
learn more about robotics and programming. Buraq camp opened the window to future of the world
and then at the same time through other lectures brought me back to the present world by making me
aware of current affairs, world politics and roles of media. Diversity was another key feature of Buraq
Camp and it was not limited to the topics of the lectures but extended to the people at the Camp. Living
together in tents performing several team building activities with other participants made me learn so
much about their diverse backgrounds and regions which I would not have known otherwise.

I always had an aptitude for mathematics and fortunately I was naturally good at it as I topped math
exams without studying it much. Although this helped me a lot in my overall academics, but it made
my classmates envy me, as they found the subject most difficult. In my O levels I would see large gap
between my math scores and those of my friends, hence, I became so overwhelmed with
overconfidence that I did not realize that for more difficult math such as that of Add math in O level,
more hard work was required. Consequently, I did poorly in easy topics of Add Math and got an A, which
was not satisfactory for me as I could have scored an A*, had I studied more. At that point I realized that
I was not adequately good at math. However, during my A levels my peers started taking my help in
mathematics as I had given extra math subject in my previous class and this turned out to be another
fortunate experience which gave me the opportunity to self-actualize in Mathematics, as my concepts
became crystal-clear in the process of transferring my thoughts into the minds of other students.

Although being confident in mathematics I was not sure of other subjects which I will pursue in future
therefore in my O levels I gave diverse range of subjects, mainly focusing on sciences. However then I
became interested in studying about accounts, economics and everything related to business and
despite of getting top grades in my previous subjects I completely changed my field line and opted for
business related subjects along with mathematics. Studying completely new subjects in A levels proved
to be more challenging than I anticipated. On the first day of school my Accounting teacher refused to
let any student sit in the class without background knowledge of the subject because he found the
subject to be so hard for the science background students. Somehow our school administration
managed to convince our teacher on taking the extra support classes for new students. Despite of this
benevolent action of school it was not working out for me as one month crash course was inadequate
for covering two years of O level teachings. I was not used to being white washed during exams but it
was happening in some A level exams now. I was failing in accounting and it was making me depress as I
went against my parent’s advice and it was backfiring. I was being blamed for taking my own decisions;
not just by my parents but by my siblings, friends and to some extent by my school administration. I had
to prove to all that I was capable of successfully following my field of interest, therefore, I started
staying late at school to study from my teachers and peers, skipping out station school trips and
hangouts with friends, and I also went to the extent of leaving playing cricket, which I have deep passion
for. Ultimately, my hard work paid off as I managed to pass accounting and other tough subjects with
decent enough grades. This experience had made two things clear that I am not afraid of challenges and
pushing myself off the limits and that I am not a settling type of person as mu interests might keep on
changing as happened in past. I believe this is not a negative thing because you test your potential by
trying new things and you get to learn a lot and this is what keeps humans alive: the process of
continuous learning.

If I am privileged enough to attend Telluride Association Summer School I would hope to meet and
socialize with other students from different countries and backgrounds because I believe that there are
so much misunderstandings and conflict between the world because of the stereotypes about people of
from different backgrounds and these prejudices can only end if people from different background
actually socialize together. I experienced this at buraq camp where although everyone was Pakistani but
belonged to different regional areas and Pakistan is a country where regional differences are adequate
to create conflicts. It was when I lived with people of pakhtoon and sindhi community that I realized
how much similar they are to my community and that how much I loved their company. For example
there was this stereotype created by racist jokes that pakhtoon community has low IQ but one of my
team mate turned out to be pakhtoon and it was in Buraq Camp that I realized how smart pakhtoons
are, as my pakhtoon team mate was the one leading and helping our team the most, outsmarting
everyone at the camp. I believe that at TASS I can utilize the opportunity to take a step towards ending
xenophobia which is being created in west due to stereotypes about Muslims and lack of
communication with Muslims of the world. Moreover, I would hope to take part in debates and public
speaking because civilized debates at such occasions can bring about discourse and l can force upon
individuals to think about issues that they might not pay attention to in the past. Lastly, I would hope
the obvious to happen: my Intellectual grooming. I hope that apart from the lectures on pre-planned
topics I would learn from practice activities that I will perform at TASS with new people.