A short wave goodbye for my good friend Francisco

“There was definitely a level of expectation that you felt, I use the word pressure because that’s exactly what it felt like at the time. Some people thrive upon that and go forward, I rebelled – I did the exact opposite. My rebellious bit was to go ‘I don’t want to pursue academia anymore, I want to go and work, I want my own financial independence’ and not to choose the cookie cutter path.”

Elvin opens the episode by talking about his troubles during schooling due to being labelled as ‘disruptive’, his struggle with certain subjects and feelings of being misunderstood. His different way of thinking, approach to learning and interpreting the world was much later explained through his dyslexia.

But why persist to follow an academic path when the system just wasn’t designed for someone like him?  Despite the pressure of his family, culture and society to succeed via an academic route, he decided to forge his own path and pursue the world of work rather than university.