Choosing my career: An emotional roller coaster

At some point in our lives, we are all approached by important questions such
as, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" or "What is your dream job?". These
questions often sound simple, but they are really not at all easy for many of us to
answer. Not all of us are prepared to give a totally firm answer to these questions
because of the pressure we feel knowing that making a quick decision or just because
just to make our parents happy could lead us to have an unwanted future and even do
things thrown away and without any affection, just because you had to study something
and get a degree. Choosing a career is a roller coaster of emotions that entails a great
challenge: to have a lot of confidence in ourselves, in our abilities and, above all, to
strive to move forward despite the adversities.
Since I was 5 years old, I always wanted to study medicine. I played at taking
care of my great-grandparents Yeyamia and Yeyo, my little brother Eduardo, and even
my nanny Daisy. I preferred playing with my medicines, band-aids and stethoscope to
playing with my dolls. I loved to help and for me that was my dream: To be able to heal
others with the love, patience and gentleness that characterized me. The only small
problem is that when we are little, we do not observe the details of each career, but we
only focus on the innocent games or what we see on television with the animated dolls.
My dream of being a doctor went up in smoke when a mishap happened with my little
brother Eduardo.
One morning like any other, Eduardo and I were at home playing while my
nanny Daisy was cooking. Eduardo found a medicine cabinet full of medicines and
syringes that my mom had stored on a shelf, which caught his attention. My little
brother opened the medicine cabinet to show me one of the syringes, but he didn't notice
that there was a syringe without its sheath. He took it and pricked the fingers of his hand
in such a way that blood came out everywhere, which traumatized me a lot. I started to
shout and my nanny was the one who helped Eduardo, because I was too nervous. From
that situation I realized that blood and I were not friends, and that as much as I liked
helping others, medicine was not for me. I definitely had to look for another career, a
career that did not deviate so much from my dream of being able to please others. I
became very depressed because I felt lost and hopeless in deciding what to study.
At the age of 10 I found a passion for cooking video games. From then on, every
time I got together with my uncle Yayo, who loved to come to my house to cook for my
family, it was to prepare new and delicious recipes that he taught me. Thanks to his
recipes and his learning, I became fond of cooking, but I also noticed that my dream
was present in my uncle, because whenever he served dishes to my family, he always
did it with a smile and pleased us. This made me realize my new decision: I wanted to
be a chef.
I focused so much on my new decision that I even dressed up as a chef (of
course with apron and hat), and even celebrated my 14th birthday with a baking theme.
The bad thing was that I didn't think about the many burns I had to go through, since
that is part of success in the kitchen. Whenever I cooked it was always with my mom
Judith or my nanny Daisy, but one afternoon I tried to fry an egg by myself and it went
wrong. Because I put too much oil in the pan, the egg splashed hot oil all over the place.
To avoid making the situation worse I took the pan and put it on another side, but
because I made the wrong move my arm stuck it to the pan, causing it to burn me very
badly. I was left with very ugly marks and my dream of being a chef vanished, because
I understood that this was not my thing due to the fear I had of getting burned. Again, I
didn't know what to study.
At the age of 18, when I was in the fourth year of high school, I still didn't know
definitively what to study, but I was under pressure to decide as soon as possible. I
started thinking and said: "I am very good at mathematics, physics and teamwork, why
not study something related to that?", and that's how I started to investigate careers that
had to do with what I mentioned. While researching, I came to the conclusion that I
could study business administration or industrial engineering, since they were the ones
that most caught my attention. Business administration came very easy to me, but
industrial engineering caught my attention right away. Industrial engineering is
concerned with optimizing processes by developing integrated systems of people,
wealth, knowledge, information and equipment, energy, materials and processes.
Industrial engineers must know how to work in teams and be team leaders, as I like to
work. I must admit that my dad Eduardo helped me a lot to make the final decision,
because he told me a little more about this beautiful career, since he is an industrial
engineer. The truth is that seeing him and seeing how he has grown inspires me a lot.
My dad started working at Timberland Free Zones, but after a few years he decided to
be his own boss and followed my grandfather Lelo's laser engraving company, which
my mom Judith also joined.
Undoubtedly, making the decision of what career to study is not an easy task,
since we are talking about our future. My experience in choosing the ideal career for me
taught me to look at things in a deeper way. It also made me understand that we should
focus more on our tastes and not on the opinions of others. I learned that we should not
give up and that we should fight for what we want, in order to reach the goal
successfully. Definitely, making decisions leads to having a roller coaster of emotions,
but always remember: It's your life, it's your decisions and you are the one in control.
My moral: Never give up, because definitely despite the moments of anguish, in the end
comes the calm and you get the best results.

Exercise 4 - Peer editing

PEER EDITING FOR THE PERSONAL STATEMENT

Dear students:

The following list is of valuable help for your partner’s writing. Answer the questions,
and offer two or more constructive suggestions pointing out any part you liked from it.
You must attach this worksheet along with the other activities performed for this class,
and according to the guidelines.

Prof. Y. Jackson

Edited by Isabella Garcia Writer’s name Ashley Lorenzo

Introduction
1. Does it have a title? Is it “catchy”? Is it connected with the prompt? Write it here.

Choosing my career: An emotional roller coaster, Yes it is connected because she chose to write
they why she chose her career and gives the reader interest by just reading the title.

2. Is there an introduction? Does it give an outline of what the author is going to

write about?

Yes

3. Does the first sentence of the introduction catch the reader’s attention?

Yes

4. Are there parts of the introduction that are unclear? If so, underline them, and put

a question mark next to the passage that you did not understand.

No, everything is clear

Body
5. Is the story organized with ideas separated into paragraphs with a smooth

transition sentence at the end of each one?

 Yes

6. Does each body paragraph have a topic sentence? Are events developed in a
sequence?

Yes

7. Are transition words used accordingly and throughout the whole story?

Yes

8. Are there any words (verbs, adjectives, nouns …) that could be substituted for

other words because they are too repetitive, or simply incorrectly used?

I think not, the words used are perfectly chosen for the type of narrative she’s writing.

Conclusion
9. Are the main points addressed in the essay restated in the conclusion, and in a way

that gives the sense of completion of the story? Does the story have a moral, a reflection?

Explain.

Yes. It does has a moral or reflection where she mentions “It also made me understand that we

should focus more on our tastes and not on the opinions of others. I learned that we should not

give up and that we should fight for what we want, in order to reach the goal successfully”

10. What did you like the most about this story? What would you do to improve
it/make it clearer?

I liked how sincere her words were. I felt like she was next to me telling me her narrative.