Gabriel Brito '20 Recruiting Profile

My name is Gabriel Mello de Brito. I am an exchange student in White City, Kansas. I was born and raised in Brasília-DF, the capital of Brasil. I have lived in the same apartment since I was 6 months old with my parents, an older brother and a younger brother. My father is a civil engineer, and my mother is an architect. I grew up watching my mom and my dad work, but I was always interested in civil engineering, and my father often took me to his job that I could observe what he was working on. 

In my school I always liked to study math and, consequently I had good grades in math. When I was in 9th grade I started to study physics, and I really liked it because it was basically the application of math in real-life situations. Sometimes when I was doing my homework and I had a question, I used to ask my father, since he is a civil engineer and knows a lot about math and physics. There was a time when I was studying stability, static equilibrium and extended free body, the most interesting area of physics I have ever studied in my life. I had a question about the homework, and then I asked my dad and he said that this area of study in physics is widely used in civil engineering. Since that day I started to get more interested in the course, started doing some research, and often asked my dad about everything I wanted to know. I'm really interested in civil engineering because it is the application of physics in real life.

What I like to do the most is play sports. I've played a lot of sports in my childhood, such as soccer, tennis, swimming, squash, volleyball, handball, running, riding my bicycle and basketball. I just like the feeling of having all the muscles in your body tired and your mind too, to come home at night after a long day of training and study, to eat, take a good shower and go to bed early to wake up early and start all over again. Sports is a great way to develop physically and mentally. It is also important to socialize and live new experiences. My favorite sport is Basketball. I grew up playing with my friends at school, at home, and watching the pro team of my city playing. I tried out for the same team at the age of 15, I made the team and played the next 2 years in the U15 and U17. Now as a foreign exchange student in the USA,  I study, play football, basketball and plan to go out for track.

My dream of going to college in the USA came to my head when I didn't know what I was going to do after finishing high school. I have always admired the USA for the importance and investment they give to sports, because of that, studying and playing basketball at a college in the USA has become a dream for me. However I had two problems, I did not know how to make the dream come true and consequently my parents did not support it. In the beginning of 2018, I saw in my basketball team's chat group about a sports exchange company from São Paulo that would come to Brasília to give a lecture about their work. My parents and I went to the lecture, and there I discovered that my dream was possible and my parents began to believe too. After a long time talking, researching and discussing with them, my parents decided to support my dream. And then came the idea of doing an exchange program, I would finish high school in the USA, have my U.S. GPA, study for ACT, play basketball in high school and learn even more about English and American culture. So now I am here in White City since August 16 living with my host father and my host brother.