At the end of 2025, as you already might have read, I’ve travelled to Cape Town. A sublime vacation, but with a topping of acknowledging this city is maybe the best Africa has to offer. Not by accident, then, here it is the most renewed university on this continent. And Cape Town it is especially important, being the first place in the world where a human heart transplant took place, in late 1967. Three months apart, my work brought me in a very special region of the world: Massachusetts, from US. I was not something planning, but it was an experience which gripped heavily in my conscience. My first time in the United States, brought me more specifically to Cambridge, the town in the world with the closest two top universities one to another: roughly one mile separates MIT from Harvard, two superior schools that are always in top 10 world wide, and very often in top 5.

Starting from Boston Logan

For me, coming from a country with a lot of pure talent in terms of pupils, students and so on, but without matching schools, since a real success is when an University from Romania makes the top 1000 in the world, the experience brought a lot of joy. Of course, having a lot of work related topics, my time to visit and to absorb the specificity of the place was limited. I am not complaining, as I really enjoy what I am doing at my job! It is just the fact that I tried to squeeze the experience as much as I could. Reason for which I even went for two runs on the streets. The first one is specially important, from 24th of February. A few hours after I have arrived on Boston Logan, a heavy snow storm hit the North-Eastern coast of the States. The blizzard unchained on the evening of 22nd of February and spread to the whole extent of the next day piled serious quantities of snow.

Snow spread across Cambridge

The Massachusetts governor advised people to not exit without a serious reason, and everyone, or almost everyone complied. Even our company, in spite of having the offices only a quarter of mile from the hotel, it was decided to stay inside, and to avoid any kind of unnecessary risks. We did used a conference room, and that was it. Better safe than sorry. Next day, its not snowing anymore, but the snow is still in heavy numbers everywhere, after almost 24 hours of accumulation. Indeed, everybody worked as much as possible to clean it, and that is obvious, but I still can’t understand the results behind, since I spend only a limited amount of time on the road. After my working schedule, though, I aim to go for a run, to see if it works, if I have the space to spread my legs on the side walks.

Education really takes you places

I mean, sure, surfaces are getting clean, but at what level? The streets, indeed, are visible swiped, even if there are not a lot of cars generally in Cambridge, the town reminds me about cities from the Northern part of Europe. The side walks also seem good, but can I actually run on them? Yes, you definitely can! I mean, despite of the heavy snow fallen, 100% of the streets where clean, and 90% of the pedestrian spots were also clean. Actually I could run as fast as I wanted, without worrying about snow. I was reluctant at the beginning, because I remember what happened this winter in Bucharest, where most of the snow, especially from the side walks was, at best, cleaned partially after several days from the snow fall, but generally left to be molten by the sun. This is a big difference.

All small details count, education provides profs everywhere

Where I want to get to with this? It is simple, and obvious from the title: education, and its importance for society. Of course not all people from Cambridge attended Harvard or MIT. Actually, most of them didn’t, but having this two prestigious institutions in your “back yard” not only enhances teaching standards and best practices when it comes to education, but shape an entire community. I would go beyond this, and remember clearly how all people walk on the right side and when, if they here you running behind, they immediately make space, without reacting oddly. These look like small things, neglectable in the day to day life, but so important and relevant, if you want to build a decent community. Or rather, acknowledge how people move in a busy park in Bucharest when you try to run.

Why did took home a Harvard hoodie

Now, getting back to Cape Town, I remember, with all its problems, how clean the city was. How helpful, generally speaking, people were. Then, finding out that the most important African University, out of all the places on this huge continent, is located exactly here. University prestige and legacy looks to be for few, especially when we are talking about huge names like MIT, or Harvard, and generally it is true. But being near these colossus of education you get shaped accordingly. And I can say, even that my time in Cambridge was so limited, that I felt how educated the place is. Maybe this is also a reason for which I have preferred to buy a Harvard hoodie from Boston Logan, before leaving, not a Boston Celtics, or New England Patriots souvenir…

I like sports a lot, I used to be even more fanatic in general, sports shaped a lot of my past, and is still shaping hunches of my life,  but the reality is that education, science, study, school and all related “items” shape always the best part of humankind. Sports can be an adjacent topic stamped to education, but it will always remain an annex, comparing to education.

Now I understand better when a scientist, during the COVID-19 era said: “Go to Ronaldo and Messi to find a cure, they are earning tens of millions of dollars, not researchers”. I didn’t got it back then, I felt it was a comparison without any sense, but after six, seven years, my brain can process correctly the meaning of the words. Indeed, education is the only path to properly develop human beings and, in the end peaceful, harmonious and prosper communities and, why not? even societies…

Photo source: pixabay.com