The Martyr

For him studying is a form of self-sacrifice. When he sits over his books until 3am and gets back to the library at 6.30am, that's when he really feels alive. Chemical formulas, equations - he loves everything which sounds potentially hard and exhausting. Friends and a social life: unnecessary. Instead the martyr hides in the library. He is rarely seen, except for exams, and his name is always at the top of the results list.

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Voilà notre exemple: Marie Sklodowska-Curie (1867-1934), scientist and pioneer in the field of radioactivity. As a woman she was not allowed to study in her hometown of Warsaw, so she left Poland and went to Paris to make her voice heard in two subject areas dominated by men: physics and chemistry. In the end she surpassed them all: Marie was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. Up until today she remains the only woman ever to have received this honour.

Photo: Jan-Henrik Dobers www.youthphotos.eu

The wild pleasure of arithmetic.

1st of all: Choose the subject that you seem least likely to study: Marie chose the most boring and uninspiring subjects you could think of: physics, chemistry and mathematics - an unlikely combination for a Polish girl from a family with Catholic traditions. So if you are a girl born into a family with a humanistic approach, follow Marie's example and start a career in natural sciences. If you are a boy born into a family of construction engineers, what about studying social pedagogy?

2nd: Make sure the subject you study is the most difficult and complex one you can find in the whole university. Study late into the night and get up early in the morning to return to your books - sleep is overrated. Castigating yourself is important if you truly want to walk in Marie's footsteps!

3rd: Your studies are all you have - Marie always began studying even harder each time fate dealt her a blow. When her mother and one of her sisters died of typhoid fever, Marie became the best high-school graduate. Later she moved to study in France after her fiancé ended their relationship by letter. And when her beloved husband Pierre died in an accident she threw herself into work in the lab to distract herself from the pain.

4th: Go and study abroad in a country where nobody will really accept you, so that you feel as lonely as possible. Marie went from Poland to Paris where nobody took her seriously because of her strong Eastern accent. For some time she lived in a primitive garret, hardly able to earn her keep. And to make it even harder she was not content with studying at a normal university - Marie had to enter the Sorbonne. Everthing else, of course, would have been too easy...

Photo: Manos Radisoglon www.youthphotos.eu

The perfect evening.

5th: Get yourself a second - or preferably even third - surname which nobody can spell. To make it even harder for your scholars, constantly change the order in which you write your names, so that nobody can really remember you.

6th: Care only for people who understand your research. Marie married a scientist who shared her field of research - they spent their most exciting moments together in the lab. Their elder daughter Irène later won the Nobel Prize too, for chemistry, so it all stayed in the family.

And then the deciding point, which separates the wannabe from the true martyr: be willing to give your life for your studies. Marie died from aplastic anaemia which resulted from exposure to radiation during her work in the lab. She made her studies her top priority and did not take care of her health.