It all began, when, months ago (March), the three of us got selected for the WMC finals, to be held in the University Of Melbourne, Australia. This great opportunity presented itself when we won several medals each in one of the 4 qualifiers- NEAMC, held in Seoul, South Korea, and earned a golden ticket straight to the finals. The preparation was hard, and the competition intense, but we ultimately emerged victorious- but this was just the beginning. We knew that the competition in Australia, if anything, would be double the intensity, containing the top 15-20 from each qualifier, each of whom, in our imagination, were readying up for a vicious bloodbath, where only one could emerge victorious.

But it turned out to be the exact opposite- the place reeked of compassion!  We were warmly greeted by our assigned mentors in random teams of 10, and spent most our free time in these groups. We met people from all over the world, and travelled the city during these memorable 7 days that we spent there, and this helped a lot to relieve our tiredness and strain from the main part of the competition- the rounds. The rounds themselves, contrary to our expectations, were not some pages-long question banks that we had to sit down and solve for hours at a row, but instead were a unique, creative way to approach mathematics, with usually a creative twist at the end. The questions tested us to our wits’ end, and each round posed a different way to test out problem-solving skills and critical thinking.

When all was set and done, and the party was finished, the medals came- a gold, a silver and a bronze for me, 2 silvers and a bronze for my first team mate Aditya Jain, and a silver for the second- but the medals were not the most significant thing we took home from our stay in Melbourne, and were definitely not the only ones. All in all, it was a great experience for us, one not to be forgotten for a long time.