Grades have been, as probably it has for many of us, a pivotal factor in our lives. My mother from Tamaulipas has spent more than 40 years teaching. My father from San Luis Potosí studied medicine and graduated with honors. For the small Luis that was 4 years old, this seemed incredible. People constantly would comment on how difficult it is to achieve such feats.
However, Luis also spent his time drawing for hours on end . Luis didn’t care about the correct English tenses, but how these tenses expressed stories. For the most part, going to school meant following the rules and status quo. Nothing else.
Fast forward 19 years, and I have finally graduated from college with a major in Computer Science from Tecnológico de Monterrey. I feel relieved and anxious from this achievement. I’m relieved I no longer have to turn in an essay at 11:59 PM in the middle of the night. However, I’m also feeling anxious because of uncertainty. What will I do next?
After a long time due, I introspected, and realized I enjoy helping others. I see in myself the kid that not only liked to draw, but enjoyed telling stories, and created DIY tabletop games for his friends based on Mario Party. The joy of creating led me to founding the first video game workshop in my high school! The workshop has been running for 8 years now!
From there it’s been team effort after team effort of helping others:
During my time in Scitum, my goal in this education startup as director and teacher was that of empowering children to express their ideas through games and applications. I believed that giving them tools for expression helped them better be themselves and show up to solve the world’s current conflicts.
Change can’t happen without collaboration. My time as the student wellfare coordinator in the Computer Science Student Council during college served as an example that listening is just as important as acting. We worked so well because we had a goal in common: make students grow. Without listening there can’t be meaningful conversation.
Change doesn’t happen in a vaccum. I had the opportunity to help citizens make informed decisions during elections in Mexico. We couldn’t have gone as far as we did without their guidance. Our top priority was to listen to our users, fellow Mexicans. It’s from this starting point that we designed the experience and information they would be provided through our chatbot.
While grades are important, they’ve only been a tool. It is with this tool that I’ll move forward with the drive of helping others in mind. That’s what I’ll do next.
