Five years ago, the young and practical version of myself saw higher education as an abstract dream. I knew where I stood in society’s system as a first-generation, low-income student. Through these challenges I came in close contact with issues in education, thus, generating my commitment to work in the education sector. While defying the barriers of my circumstances, I was given the opportunity to mildly contribute to the development of an education policy in Ecuador that has helped many Ecuadorian students to obtain their undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in prestigious universities around the world. This inspired me to build a career on ensuring that students from disadvantage socioeconomic and sociopolitical communities have access …show more content…
During this time I had the opportunity to meet Ecuadorian assemblywoman, Linda Machuca, to whom I communicate my worries on my limitation to access higher education in the United States. She informed me about an education policy that would allow the Ecuadorian government agency, SENESCYT, the ability to grant full-tuition scholarship to Ecuadorian citizens for their undergraduate and post-graduate studies. From then on, I assisted assemblywoman Linda Machuca by providing information about the college process in the United States. In addition, to presenting written feedback on possible improvements for the application procedure to make it efficient and smoother for Ecuadorian students residing in other …show more content…
In his worked titled “Accelerated Schools in the United States: Do They Have Relevance for Developing Countries?”, I found his analysis of the principals of accelerated school model in the context of developing societies very intriguing, especially the philosophy of empowering at-risk population to take greater control of their education as well as the idea of creating a curriculum relevant to these students. Beyond fulfilling my academic interest, the Economic and Education program will also prepare me for my long-term career goal, which is to establish an organization that is able to assist the public sector of developing nations in the design, implementation, and evaluation of education policies aim to ensure quality education for all students regardless of the economic circumstances. While this career goal seems intimidating, I am reminded of the little girl from Ecuador who was not supposed to make it this far, and I think about just how far she can go. I am certain that the Economic and Education Master program at Columbia University will provide me with the strong academic foundation that I need to continue defying these