martes, 2 de agosto de 2011

Dear Deans of Admision...

A continuación les comparto una carta que envié a las distintas universidades a las que apliqué para la beca... En cierta manera es un poco de mi historia para que me conozcan aún más...

Dear Deans of Admission,

Where to start? The beginning might be a good place, right? I’m sitting here in my room, contemplating my surroundings, looking back at memories of such different times I’ve gone through my life, trying to come up with a way of telling you how perfect I am for this program. But no luck, I am not perfect am merely human, so I will just tell you the story of how I became an engineer and how come it is that I so badly want to be in your program.

Some time ago I saw a video based on an essay by Mary Schmich, “Wear sunscreen” was the name of the film. It was about many things, mainly about life and learning to enjoy it but what I’ll never forget is a phrase that said “The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.” By the time I heard those words I was about 18 years old, graduating from High School ready to fulfill my all life dream: to study Mechatronics Engineering in one of the most recognized universities of my country. So I knew exactly what to do with my life, perhaps I was not part of that sentence; I would not be one of the most interesting people, so what? I knew what I wanted in life and I was thrilled about it.

This dream started when I was five years old, all my little friends and classmates wanted to be doctors, firefighters, singers, musicians, princesses, magicians or superheroes, but I was no ordinary kid I wanted to be a Mechanical Electrical Engineer and work with cars and robots just like my father did and my brother would. By that time, Mechatronics Engineering didn’t even exist. During Secondary school I choose to take Electronics above Cooking and Typing lessons as the other girls in school did, there I learnt about the existence of this new career which combined: mechanics, electronics, programming, all this in order for being able to create robots and automobiles and thousands of other automated pieces of technology. I was sure that is what I wanted in life.

During both college and High School I pursued as well a new passion in my life, so I lived a double life: Actress / Engineer. Many of my classmates continuously stated that I was far from normal (from being a not ordinary kid to being a not normal Student), they just could not understand how come I had time for pursuing so many things even less when I started studying Mechatronics. But above all they wondered how come I had so many interests in two things that were so different from each other.

Through my studies I had the opportunity to study in Austria for one semester. I was accepted in a university of Applied Sciences and I was offered a Scholarship from the Austrian Agency for international Mobility and Cooperation in Education, OÄD. I took the opening and with this I had the opportunity to study a minor in Automotive Engineering. After this I was offered a position in a Mexican Company placed in Germany for an internship, so I stayed in Europe for a couple of more months. During this time I learnt so much about so many things, but the most important was realizing that it would take long years and many prepared people to help my beloved Mexico become even a shadow of what European countries are, to become self sufficient to have great health services, to have a good quality of life for everyone living there.

I was 21 years old when I came back to my country, after being independent, to find myself dealing with a late adolescence: I was kind of a little rebel. It was something I never had experienced during my teenage years I did not want to listen to my parents, to my teachers I just wanted to be “me”, but now after so many years of knowing what I wanted I became lost an did not know who I was anymore. Several years of my life being two people, Gina the Actress and Gina the Engineer, but now graduation date was getting closer and with it a decision had to be made: which path to follow. Now I was 22 going on 23, only one semester for finishing my Bachelors degree, and so it came to me: I had become one of the most interesting people in the world, I had no idea what I wanted in life.

By the time I graduated I had made the decision that first I would try to be an actress, imagine the thrill of my parents. They just hated the decision but I was so confident that it was what I wanted, until it wasn’t. So last couple of months I had to deal with the hardest problem I had ever had: finding who I was, so not a single engineering opportunity came to me but many acting opportunities did and I took them all. I could not be happier in the moment being. June, July, went by and August was coming to an end and I had invested all my time in theater rehearsals and performances, getting gloomier and more depressed as each day went by so I decided to get some time for myself, getting apart from my friends and my life and just concentrating in me.

So a couple of weeks went by, just thinking, remembering, of looking myself and my past through the spy glass. How come acting which I had loved for about 8 years now had become something I had to endure rather that something I could enjoy? How come? The answer was always there, I just didn’t want to see it. I was so afraid of growing up that I had pursued a childish dream and with that I had been hiding for myself. I did not have to find who I was because I had always known it, I was simply Gina, there was no Gina actress and Gina Engineer, but simply Gina: an Engineer who enjoys theater, but an engineer above all.

During my studies there had been some years where I had not been involved in acting, but merely being and spectator, being abroad is an example of it. When I studied and did my internship outside my country all I did was related to my career and I can’t remember a happier time in my life but one: the summer of 2007. That summer I spent advancing one of my degree courses, which I did studying mechanics, electronics, programming spending all my summer inside a lab with a few of my classmates. Well, I lie, there is a happier moment, and the happiest I can recall: the day I accepted I was growing up and that all that I wanted was to pursue my Engineering career.

Sadly, in Mexico there are not enough people willing to get out their area of comfort of just doing what there told to, not enough people willing to take a risk of doing more, of doing something else but little by little these risk takers have been appearing. I want to be a part of this rising generation of Mexicans that want to help out my country by getting as much knowledge as possible for making a change: stop being a merely manufacturer for other countries technology and becoming a developer of our own.

Looking forward to your decision,
Georgina Gutiérrez Glinz

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