André Felipe dos Reis Paes de Figueiredo, 19

Year 13, FirstPoint School — The Villa, Dubai

What does it take to be cool?

Having a laugh, playing football, dating the pretty cheerleaders. Even if you’re not from the US, that’s you dream. I remember when I was in high school how I had to act tough and cool, so I could join the popular group from school. I was member of the “cool group” and joined university a year ago. Because of my experience, I’m here to give you some tips on how to make you cool.

Benefits of being cool

Being cool will get you many benefits. By being cool, you become popular. By becoming popular, you will be able to sit in the table will the cool kids and pretty girls. By being popular, you will ALWAYS be invited to parties. You’ll also be the dream of every other “not cool” student. Finally, the biggest benefit is that everybody will respect you and do everything in their reach to please you.

How to become cool?

Becoming cool is expensive and can be challenging. There are four steps your child will have to follow will have to follow:

1. You can’t worry about silly things, you should be relaxed, chilled and laugh at other people’s jokes (doesn’t matter if it’s funny or not). Cool people have simple humour, which may not entertain you, but you should pretend you enjoy it.

2. You need to have good knowledge of the sport that is considered “cool” in the environment you are in, and be good at it. Cool people are good at sports.

3. You need to buy expensive, trendy clothes (never said cool is cheap).

4. Your Instagram account must have at least 10K followers. You are not cool if you have less than 10K followers.

Disadvantages of being cool

Becoming cool has only one disadvantage. There’s no advantage. Changing the way you are and acting superficially to fit into a certain environment definition of “cool” is the silliest thing someone could possible do. Being yourself will always lead you to the right group of friends, where you have a much greater chance to develop friendships that might last for the rest of your life. By not being yourself, you will be missing out the chance to know yourself better in such a crucial time of your life. Trust me, I’ve been in your place. So please, don’t worry, and be yourself.