19/11/2019

After winning seven gold medals at OBMEP, student enters UFSC.

Luiz Felipe na premiação da OBMEP 2018

Karine Rodrigues

Mathematics entered Luiz Felipe Pfleger's life through his mother, Marlene, a farmer of German descent who stopped her studies in elementary school.

“She wrote the multiplication tables from 1 to 10 on pieces of paper,” recalls the student, about his first memory related to Mathematics. He was five years old and about to enter the Municipal School of Santa Isabel, in Águas Mornas (SC), a city of just over five thousand inhabitants.

Marlene, 39, remembers in detail how she introduced the subject to her son, even before he started preschool: “I copied the multiplication tables onto small sheets of paper, using colored pens. He loved it. His eyes already lit up at the sight of numbers.”

Children's natural fascination with mathematics grew along with Luiz Felipe. When the concepts began to become more complex, in the second cycle of elementary school, he learned about the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad for Public Schools (OBMEP). He was in the 6th grade at the Conselheiro Manoel Philippi Basic Education School.

She debuted in the competition at age 11 and won a gold medal. She repeated the feat in all six of her other participations in the OBMEP. She says she always liked Mathematics, but it was with the OBMEP that it became her favorite subject and turned into a future career in STEM fields.

Luiz Felipe e família

When he won his first gold medal, it was a novelty in the region, where, until then, no one had won any prize in the OBMEP.

Seven OBMEPs, seven gold medals. The last one was received at the national awards ceremony held in July in Salvador, Bahia.

“My most memorable experience was the day a young woman called me, saying I had been awarded a gold medal. Every time the results came out it was exciting. But, for sure, this one was the most exciting, because it was the first medal,” he says, about the award he won in 2012.

With the medals, Luiz Felipe secured participation in the OBMEP Scientific Initiation Program, the PIC Jr., "an incredible experience." Once a month, he would head to UFSC to study Mathematics and solve challenging problems.

“With PIC Jr., I learned subjects that weren't covered in school. Certainly, with Mathematics I discovered that I can be self-taught, and this was very important for me, especially when I took the university entrance exam, because I also studied alone for the other subjects.”

In 2019, he began his studies in Electrical Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Florianópolis. He says that the support of his parents and teachers was essential in making him believe he could go far.

Professor João Ives Schmitt Huller never doubted it. When Luiz Felipe enrolled at Conselheiro Manoel Philippi in 2012 to attend the 6th grade of elementary school, he immediately realized how special the new student was.

“Dedicated, focused, attentive, and very insightful in interpreting mathematical problems. As a teacher passionate about mathematics, I saw enormous potential in him. He is a source of pride for me and for all of Águas Mornas. Many students were and continue to be inspired by him,” says João Ives, who considers OBMEP “a very useful tool to encourage students and demystify the idea that mathematics is a boring subject.”

Luiz Felipe's admission to university filled Marlene and her husband, José, 45, a bricklayer who, like her, did not complete elementary school, and her brother André, 15, also an award winner in the OBMEP (Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad for Public Schools), with pride.

“We didn’t have the opportunity to go to university. Seeing our son grow in his academic career and get into an excellent university is very rewarding for us, for his teachers and friends as well,” observes Marlene. “We always try to give him the necessary support so he can study. I also thank God for placing excellent teachers in his life.”

To be closer to UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), the family left Águas Mornas and moved to Palhoça.

“It was the best we could do at the moment. He is very happy. My husband is a bricklayer, and the construction industry is going through a crisis right now. But we always fight together for the family's livelihood and well-being,” says Marlene.

Regarding his new routine, Luiz Felipe believes it demands more dedication, but he's where he wanted to be. “With mathematics, I learned that I can always strive for my best. Many problems will arise, but you have to persevere to solve them. Furthermore, learning shouldn't be about brute force; the important thing is to enjoy what you're doing and always seek to improve.”