NO FAIRYTALE | Pinay teen bags MIT scholarship after string of failures

June 27, 2019 , 09:36 AM

By Bim Santos, One News

JUNE 27, 2019 – Hillary Andales is a 19 year old who does not know any fairy tale.

Growing up in the seaside town of Abuyog in Leyte, Hillary says her parents never read her any fairy tale. Instead, her parents reared her on a diet of stories about the adventures of the great men and women of science.

“They told me stories like Marie Curie’s struggles as a woman in science in the early 20th century, about Charles Darwin’s adventures in the Galapagos island, and Einstein’s really big idea that revolutionized Physics so those stories really amazed me and showed me how science could change the world,” Andales said, saying two-time Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie was her childhood hero.

Andales says her parents were not strict in imposing household rules for her to excel in school, but rather just built up the environment to help her grow. His father is a chemist and her mother is an accountant and both share a love for science. She recalls their house being filled with so much books it was difficult to step through hallways. And up to now, her face lights up when talking about their usual dinner table conversation.

Her favorite authors include Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and Richard Feynman.

“During dinner time we still discuss things like philosophy and physics,” Andales says.

Yolanda ordeal

Her parents eventually focused on their business of running a school review center, deciding to move to Tacloban City in 2013 to expand the venture. It was the same year that Typhoon Yolanda struck and wiped out the homes of thousands in the city, including the Andales family.

Hillary recalls the ordeal of hanging on to the steel trusses of their ceiling for seven hours along with her other family members. It also further amplified her drive to pursue a career in science, believing that lives could have been saved if there was better science communication before the typhoon.

“I was quite disappointed in myself because even if I was interested in science, I did not know what a storm surge was. I think that’s a big flaw in the process of science communication in our country,” Andales said.

After picking up the pieces from Typhoon Yolanda, Andales continued pursuing her passion in science at the Philippine Science High School Eastern Visayas Campus in Palo, Leyte.

Awards and setbacks

In 2017, she won the prestigious Breakthrough Junior Challenge or BJC after edging out 11,000 entries from various countries.

She reaped over P20 million pesos worth of prizes, bulk of which was allotted to a college scholarship fund. Her winning entry was a whimsical three-minute animated video explaining the concept of relativity and equivalence of reference frames, heady scientific areas that usually take a whole semester to expound.

Now, she is all set to start as a freshman at the storied Massachusetts Institute of Technology . This was after she got gained admission to various local and international educational institutions.

“Ultimately, I want to become a research scientist, specially in astrophysics,” Andales said.

But before piling up her achievements, Andales said she also had her fair share of setbacks. Her winning entry to the BJC was actually her second attempt at the competition. Her first attempt came the year before where she failed to bag the top prize, though she managed to get the Top Popular Vote award.

Andales said she joins numerous international contests, where she sometimes fails to make the cut. She then compiles these failed entries in a folder on her computer with the folder heading “Attempts.”

“For me, I dont call them failures. I call them learning experiences. I really join contests for the opportunity to learn,” said Andales.

She added that her being able to go through such attempts, without fear of failing, plays a huge part in her growth.

“For me, it’s a good way to look back on my growth. When I look back at my ‘attempts folder,’ I see myself as someone who is not afraid of failure and someong going into things with the attempt to grow,” Andales said.

Social media ‘addict’

She admits, she also got addicted to social media once, particularly Facebook. Now, she tries to limit her social media usage to an hour a day.

“I am conscious about how I spend my time on social media. I tend to think about my time as money kasi when I don’t, I just spend it mindlessly and hindi ko iniisip na valuable siya when in fact it’s a limited resource,” Andales said.

But she says social media will still be essential in science communication, an area she still wants to do as a student in MIT.

“I have a knack for popularizing science especially as a young person through social media and I plan to use that more to engage,” Andales said.

Such an engagement on scientific issues in the Philippines will be crucial, as scientific literacy among the public remains a vital concern.

“I’m happy there is more awareness now, but there’s still a long way to go,” Andales said.

The girl who grew up beside the sea with stories about great scientists may not be familiar with any children’s fairy tale. But her life, now being filled with remarkable achievements at a young age, is now turning out to be just one. But if she, along with a select others, succeeds as a science communicator, the country’s future may just be where Filipinos excelling in science may not be the stuff of fairy tale anymore.

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