6 steps to win the Excellence in Studies Award

With the help of the 2021 winning students, we put together the best tips to participate in the upcoming editions.

Study the whole year, get good grades, win the prize that recognizes your efforts, and on top of it, earn R$ 2,500. Who doesn't want that? That's right, every year there is a list of the best students from Santa Cruz and the surrounding area, who receive a performance certificate and a unique grant. The winning students of the last edition told us which steps are critical to having a good school year. This is the way to have consistent performance and, consequently, to win the prize.

The Excellence in Studies Award is a Ternium initiative for young high school students from Rio’s West Zone. The company offers a R$ 2,500 grant to the best students in the public school system in Santa Cruz, plus those at Faetec and Cefet-Itaguaí. Each student is enrolled at the participating schools and is evaluated according to their academic performance, discipline, attendance over the whole school year, in addition to consideration for the student’s socioeconomic aspects. In the last edition, 159 students were selected and celebrated the achievement in an online ceremony, due to the social distancing measures imposed by the pandemic.

To help students who want to be part of the select group of winners, we recruited the support of some of the winning students in the 2021 edition. Here, they help with special tips that were relevant to getting good grades throughout the school year they had before and during the pandemic.

1 – Set up a study schedule

The award winners had one characteristic in common: Organization. Having an agenda set up, with your detailed study schedule following the school’s demand, can make all the difference in your grades. The more organized, the better. After all, this tip is important not only for high school; it can help to study for college entrance exams as well. This is the case of Caio Fagundes, a student from Cefet - Itaguaí, who put together Excel spreadsheets to help control all the subjects he needed to keep up to date. He told us that this helped to stay ahead of the contents and ensure good grades, which earned him not only a good transcript but also a place among the winners of the award’s last edition.

2 – Be flexible

Having flexibility helps a lot to learn, exercise, and discover content in alternative ways. This was one of the main virtues that the winning students had in common. They sought knowledge from multiple free platforms on the Internet, which provided the complement they needed. Most students have chosen YouTube, which has several free channels, such as Descomplica and Stoodi. They also pointed out to sites with very helpful content, like Brainly and Me Salva!, and even to groups on Facebook. This is the case of Thamires Barbosa, a student who achieved a perfect 10 average in the last academic year.  She has already won the Excellence in Studies Award in two editions: 2020 and 2021.

3 – Organize study groups

The winners of the award had the help of friends to stay focused and clear their questions. Most of them felt hard the lack of contact with teachers provided by the classroom. So one of the alternatives was to organize meetings with classmates so that everyone could help each other. These groups are a way to clear doubts, solve questions, and do projects. In general, they directly influence academic performance, after all, one student helps the other and everyone wins. A good example is Amandha Oliveira, a student at Colégio Barão do Rio Branco, one of the institutions participating in the Ternium initiative. She had the habit of meeting with classmates twice a week and uses Discord as a platform for sharing knowledge and mutual help.

4 – Keep your motivation

To have consistency throughout the school year, the students needed a lot of focus and concentration. One of the biggest incentives for their good performance was the opportunity to be recognized and to win the R$ 2,500 grant. For many, the money has served as an aid during the difficult times of the pandemic. This was the case with 19-year-old student Gabrielle da Costa. According to her, “the award came at a time of difficulty and served to help my family.” Some people invested in a dream or started a specialization course to enter the job market. There were also those who saved for an emergency or bought material to help with the studies. This is the case with Letícia Braga, a student at Faetec - Santa Cruz. She won for the second time and invested in equipment to better study online. “The money has served to buy a new computer and also a Kindle, to make reading easier,” she says.

5 – Discover the Excellence in Studies Award

It is crucial that everyone understands what they are participating in in order to be able to prepare and perform as well as possible. João Paulo Barbosa, a student at CE Professor Ozeas Gomes Larangeiras, has already won the prize twice and will try the third time this year. He says that knowing the regulation well helped him compete: “I found out about the award on Instagram, that’s where I went to better understand how I could participate.” The 18-year-old youth usually watches Ternium's social profiles closely and finds what’s new there. It was through the competition announcement that he learned more about the criteria, rules, and conditions to compete and win. So it's very important to keep an eye on our official information channels: The Ternium website, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. That's where we post the dates, inform the details and announce the list of winners. Don't waste time, follow Ternium and stay connected because there’s more this year!

6 – Set goals and don't lose focus

Another student who knows well the reality of remote studies is Julia Gomes, a student at Faetec. She says that some virtues should be maintained as a mantra in the academic journey. “To win, you need organization, quality, focus, planning, and a lot of determination. We know that even in a pandemic, our effort will be rewarded. I went after things, redefined my priorities, and saw that I would only get good grades through my effort. That was the case last year, and I hope it will be now, too,” she said. She is 18 years old, has already won the award in the past two editions, and wants to win in 2022 as well.

Last but not least, we tell the story of Manuella Mendes, 18, who won the last edition of the award. She says she is very excited and feels motivated to celebrate the achievement again. The young woman used the grant as an investment in studies. “The award is a very important incentive. We study knowing that we can be rewarded with the grant. I used that money to buy a new laptop to study. If I win again this year, it will be very useful, I will save to help with the costs when I enter college,” she says.