In a country facing increasing development such as Brazil, there is a great need for a highly specialized workforce, particularly engineers.

Much knowledge is still retained in developed countries such as the United States. One goal of exchange programs is to help spread this information around the world, thereby enabling underserved nations to share in new technological developments. With increasing development, civil construction likewise starts to grow. With this growth comes the need for new, improved construction techniques and materials. High-resistance concrete is generally used in large construction projects; as high-resistance concrete has not yet been widely studied, many students, including me, have a strong interest in this new and promising area. Recently I was engaged in a research project involving the production of high-resistance concrete. During the project I had the opportunity to learn more about concrete technology, and I realized this is an area in which I am tremendously interested. In my stateand especially in my citygreat work opportunities are emerging due to the proliferation of large companies in our port area. However, because our region lacks sufficient specialized professionals to fulfill this need, the industry is obliged to import much of its workforce from other regions, and even from other countries. Thus, my personal objective is to become specialized in concrete technology with an emphasis in high-resistance concrete. Therefore, I seek admission to a university that will allow me to make new professional contacts and learn about different production techniques and different materials so that I may return home with this knowledge and share these advanced techniques in the production of high-resistance concrete.