In my life I have received positive influences from several people, such as my parents, my beloved grandmother.... But there is one in particular who showed me my professional path, and I thank her with all my heart.
When I finished my high school studies what I had in mind was to study medicine, I was very focused on that, this was the career in which I wanted to perform professionally, so much so that I took a first aid course at the Red Cross and I enrolled in the group of volunteers of the same institution.
To enter the School of Medicine of the public university I had to take an Admission Test (which was annual) and from there they assigned the quotas. I took it twice, but I did not excel, so I could not get in...
I could also study at a private university, but my family did not have the necessary economic resources, so that was not an option for me either.
In the public university, for the areas of Nursing and Bioanalysis the demand was lower, several of my acquaintances took them as an option to enter the Faculty of Health Sciences in the hope of changing schools later, I must say that this was not easy either, and there are those who took love to that second option, a friend in particular graduated with a degree in Bioanalysis and is a very good professional.
For me, however, doing that was not an option, in fact the thought of it caused me more frustration, so if I was not a doctor I would study something else in a totally different field.
What about now? What can I study?
I live in Valencia, and my dad lives in the east of the country, so I see him from time to time. That disjunctive stage of my life coincided with a weekend when I went to visit my dad, I remember it was a long weekend, so I took advantage of those days of enjoyment to share with my dad, there I met one of his friends, her name was Mariela, she was a splendid woman, she was one of those people with whom it is easy to talk, and between one topic and another, my topic came up: what would I like to study? I told her that I had no idea, so she told me about her career, how in love she was with it, all the satisfactions she had had, and how versatile it was, so I was fascinated by industrial engineering...
I want to say that I never saw Mariela again, we never met again in any of my visits, her mission in my path was to guide me to focus on this direction. She does not know the good she did me, I think she never knew the influence she had on me, and I am eternally grateful to her.
I mentioned that this was her mission in my life because it was not by chance, in fact when I applied for engineering entrance exams in two universities, in both I got the quota; that is, I could even choose.
Before meeting Mariela, I had been looking for characteristics of different professions, and when I read what industrial engineering was all about it did not capture my attention. It was Mariela's enthusiasm that channeled my energy, and now I can't imagine myself having studied anything else with the same satisfaction.
Today I am an Industrial Engineer because Mariela had an extraordinary influence on the beginning of my professional life.
Thank you, Mariela!