By: Spica, 11th Grade Enroot Cambridge Student
In the career panel, we met some amazing people. They work in their own field, have different careers, different backgrounds and different perspective of life. But they all have the same kind of passion for life and their careers. We learned a lot not only from their speech about their experiences as professionals, but also from the life story they provide for us.
Aman Advani used to study engineer major when he was in college. At that time, what he knew about himself is all about engineering. He worked so hard everyday, got his degree and went to work right away. That was a hard time, he had to get on a plane every Monday and visit different places in the world. Although he never get enough sleep, he actually enjoy his time. However, after years, he started thinking, is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? That is when he took a step back, went back to school again. He went to MIT to the school of management and learned new stuff. In there, he met a friend and they started business with him together. They built a company together in a tiny room. For Mr. Aman, he really wants to make something that makes people more positive. So he and his friends try to makes these new clothes easy to move around.
“If you only judge people by color, or the community they come from, that is not fair for them at all. You should listen to their story, understand who they really are instead of giving them a “tag” when you first saw them.”
The first impressions of Mr. Gustavo Lopez is very obvious. I mean, he looks very serious, also, cool. He stood up and started his speech. He wanted to become a police officer when he was in middle school. So after he graduated from high school, he started his police dream. He also went to college and studied Criminal justice. However, after I chatted with him, I find out he has something special not only just as a police officer. When he took off his police jacket, he is normal person like us. You might see him in Starbucks, the train station or some other place. So we should feel free to talk with them. I asked him about the the police shooting people in the street, he had his own perspective .Although they are all police, they are not the same people. You can not just judge people based on their outfit. For example, if a police man shoots people by no reason, is that means other police will also shoot people? NO. They do wear the same uniform, but it doesn’t mean they are all the same. I actually think about the same way. People nowadays look at problem only on one side. If there is one bad person, does that means all the people in his community are bad? You can’t say everyone is bad and we should kill all of them. Bad people always exist in our life, however, most of the people are good people. If you only judge people by color, or the community they come from, that is not fair for them at all. You should listen to their story, understand who they really are instead of giving them a “tag” when you first saw them.
Denys E.Alvarez's career is support engineer in at Analysis Group. I have never heard support engineer before in my life. After I talked with him, I find out that it is a career that has to work in the back. So what he usually do is when there is a problem happening in the company, he will go and investigate how this problem occur and try to fix it. When he was small, he was really into computers. But at the same time, he also loved to talk with people and solved problem for them. So he kind of combined his two hobbies together. That is the other thing we can think when we chose career in the future. If you have two things that you really wants to do, try to find a way that you can chose both.
“Never give up what you think you want to do and what you think you can do. Even if people judge you, it is still your life. You are going to live for yourself, not for other people.”
Pamela Rosario Perez grew up in a small town in the Dominican Republic that didn’t have electricity. However, she didn’t want to follow the steps of her family. Because in some countries, people don’t think letting women to work is right. They think women should stay at home and take care of kids. As she said, that is not right, a woman is also a person, they should have equal rights as men. Women should have opportunities for education and chase their dream. Pamela wanted to go to a college. But her counselors and teachers in high school didn’t think she could go to college. She felt upset and frustrated at first. You know, that is the worst feeling that when you think you can achieve something, others don’t believe in you. In addition, instead of saying something positive and encourage you, they chose to “pull you back.” After a while, she didn’t give up her dream. She set up a plan to make her counselor agree for her to take AP classes. At the end, she really proved herself and she went to Harvard with a full ride scholarship. She said, “Back then, I can still remember that day how my counselor’s face looked. That is such a different experience in my life.” When we asked her how she got into Harvard even there was no one think that is possible, she smiled and her voice is full of confidence. “Never give up what you think you want to do and what you think you can do. Even if people judge you, it is still your life. You are going to live for yourself, not for other people.”
All in all, I learned a lot in this career panel. It provides me such a good opportunity to know these different career in our life. Because of these people, our life become more ordered. To end up with, let’s go back to the idea of career. A career is different than a job, it is the thing you really want to do in life. Even if sometimes you are tired, you can still keep the passion. For the future, choose something you really want to do. Never give up what you think you want to do and what you think you can do. “Even if people judge you, it is still your life. You are going to live for yourself, not for other people."