Backstory
I won’t jump straight into the idea behind this “blog” — instead, I’ll start with what pushed me to begin writing and posting things on the internet.
Over my last year of studying in America, I started thinking more about my values, my goals, and what I actually want out of life. In moments like that, I’d inevitably look back at the past and try to figure out what I had valued and what I hadn’t; what I liked doing and what I couldn’t stand. But there was one question I just couldn’t answer. It’s ironic that, having spent hundreds (maybe a thousand) of hours on olympiad chemistry, I couldn’t answer: “Why did I do chemistry? What drove me when I sat for hours reading textbooks?”
My first (and most incorrect) answer was — I like chemistry. I figured that since I’d spent so much time reading about organic reactions and solving elegant synthesis problems, I must love the science itself. In some sense — yes. I still get pleasure from learning something new in chemistry, but as a craft it doesn’t interest me. After 8 months of working in an organic lab and dozens of chemistry talks from professors, I realized I don’t want to tie my future to chemistry. Even during my first weeks in the lab, I felt like I was doing the wrong thing. As if this wasn’t the chemistry from the Clayden and Atkins textbooks. At the same time, physics and math courses filled me with pleasure from learning something new. Caltech opened up a new and literally boundless world for me. At moments I wished I had started with these sciences instead. This not only pushed me to switch my major to physics (a separate topic) but opened my eyes — in part, I had done olympiads not because of the beauty of chemistry, but because learning new things brought me some kind of joy. It just happened that chemistry was what I came across first. Any craft seems boundless and interesting at the start.
That said, “passion for acquiring knowledge” is a pretty lofty thing for an 8th–9th grader. I remember a lot of “WOW, AHA!” moments studying organic chemistry and quantum mechanics, and that definitely pushed me forward, but there’s a reason I don’t think “the desire to learn new things” was my original goal. I remember in 8th and 9th grade, school math and physics lessons gave me enough new knowledge. Apparently my “thirst for new knowledge” was being satisfied — my free time went into video games and football. But everything changed during the online olympiad (setevaya). After that, I started studying diligently and systematically: I set myself a clear goal and went after it.
The Main Event
The event that affected me this way was just a simple external human factor! That year our school, NIS FMN Astana, sent a group that included a 12th grader named Abilmansur. As a younger 9th grader, I spent a lot of time with him and his friends. The surprising part was that their conversations were about chemistry, science, and universities. They discussed quantum problems. I still remember Abil trying to explain something to me, and the only word my brain registered was — electronvolt. Their conversations were sharply different from anything I’d ever heard. Their eyes lit up over these topics, and that turned out to be contagious. After meeting him, I decided for myself that he was genuinely cool. Maybe without realizing it, I wanted to be like him. I literally defined that it’s cool to have that kind of knowledge, cool to have that kind of social circle, and cool to travel because of it.
It was precisely because he showed up that I started doing chemistry seriously. Then I met Azim agai, who only poured more fuel on the fire of my motivation. And then what? Dozens of new friends/comrades for life, unforgettable memories from trips to Uzbekistan and Switzerland, and studying in America. And all of it traces back to that online olympiad trip.
So, why do I run this site? I understand that the lucky chance of immediately meeting Abilmansur and Azim (two IChO medalists) is one in tens of thousands. And it’s even rarer for them to actually respond and help you. Sure, there’s Ask, where these same people will help you solve problems, but I see one unfilled niche. I think there are a lot of school students wondering whether they should do olympiads. And an answer like “it’s just cool” (the way I once convinced myself) might not be satisfying. For more forward-looking students it can be hard to make the final call, because it’s just unknown what olympiad people do after school. A lot of international medalists, after enrolling in a foreign university, just disappear. It’s unclear what they’re doing, where this path took them, and whether it was worth it. I went through this myself when I wondered what IChO participants do at university and afterward. In many cases, they go off to work in IT and other fields, but how, why, and what for — that’s unclear.
Conclusion
By running this blog, I want to get closer to school students who are thinking about doing olympiads or are already doing them. I want to show my path after the olympiads and just share the difficulties I run into, the conclusions I reach, and the mistakes I make. I’d like to remove this generational barrier. And I want to show what a potential olympiad student’s path can look like — and then it’s up to you to decide whether it’s cool or not.
Thanks to Yernur Kairollayev and Kirill Kim for their helpful comments on the first version of this essay.