I love the beginning of a new year! Every January, I get this feeling of "anything is possible" and I'm filled with the desire and energy to do new and exciting things! But to be honest, I only started feeling this way last year when our science teacher, Mr. Majambo, taught us the formula for having the best year ever.

During our first class of the new semester, Mr. Majambo asked us to write down three big dreams that we hoped to achieve that year. I thought, “I want to build my mother a house, I want to have a car and drive it myself, and I want to travel to another country for fun – but I can't achieve all this in a year!”

So I asked Mr. Majambo for help. He told me to think of something that will help me achieve these other big dreams but was possible for me to work towards today. So I thought, "science is my favourite subject, maybe one day I can be a scientist and make the money I'd need to buy a house, car, and travel." What I could do now is join the science club and maybe try and win a regional science competition.

My friend Aminatou joined the science club with me. We solved problems together after school and met on weekends to test each other. We were the only two girls in the club, and the boys treated us like we weren't as smart as them. Eventually, we started answering questions faster than some of them and they began to respect us.

Our club did qualify to go to the regional science competition and came third place out of 10 teams. This showed me that I could do anything if I worked hard and believed in myself. No goal is too big for me now – this year, I'm sure we'll make it all the way to the national competition.