A Spirit of Survival

“In life's journey we are often uncertain where we stand, where we are going and what is the right path for us personally.” This quote is one which describes my life experience.

I was born in Ecuador in a small town surrounded by fruit orchards, mountains and volcanoes. When I was eight years old my family moved to the United States of America (USA). We began our new lives in the state of New Jersey where I became surrounded by buildings and concrete.

Being so young, I was excited to try and experience something new. A new place, a new culture, a new language and new friends.

Then all of the sudden within two weeks of being in New Jersey, my family’s life changed. My father abandoned us and my mother was left to raise four children on her own in a strange country in the middle of winter. Being eight years old, I didn’t know how to make things better but I never felt afraid.

My mother, being a strong woman, made our family always feel safe Her joy of life and kindness, made me unaware that we were poor and struggling. We were so poor that we did not have boots or coats for winter. I remember the clothes we brought from Ecuador… definitely not appropriate for the middle of January. My coat was a light woolen poncho and my shoes were a pair of fancy leather shoes with leather soles.

Slowly, my mother tried to make our situation better. She started working double shifts in a factory and our family got some coats and boots from some parents at school. It was rough for a bit but eventually my mother, through her hard work, provided for us as best as she could.

Ever since we started living the United States, I don’t remember Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, or any other type of gifts. We barely had enough money for the necessities.

When I was nine years old, I remember seeing how my friends from school had birthday parties and received so many gifts. So I had an idea! I would give myself a birthday party. While this was a great attempt at trying, this was overall a failure and a life lasting learning experience. I was so mesmerized and focused on the outcome of gifts, that I didn’t consider asking my mother for permission. I guess I was afraid she would say no. The week before my birthday, I told all my friends to come to my birthday party on Saturday. Since my mother was unaware of my plan, there were no birthday preparations for the guests. When my friends started arriving at our door on Saturday morning, my poor mother didn’t know what was going on so I had to reveal my plan. I saw the disappointment and anger in my mother’s face. Her punishment to me was that since I created this mess, it was my responsibility to clean it up. I had to turn away every friend that came to my door with their gift. It was very embarrassing for me but this taught me several lessons: Never do anything behind your mother’s back and it taught me to take responsibility for my own actions.

My mother gave our family lots of love but she was strict and taught us many life lessons. In my childhood, she taught me, aside from family, education always came first. She also taught me about working hard and being kind and humble. These qualities have helped me stay true to myself.

As the years passed, we learned to appreciate life for what it was: loving and respecting one another, enjoying family meals, and spending time as family doing simple things that brought

us joy.

My life was filled with happiness. I was doing great in school and I had plenty of friends. However, like anything else, life can be unpredictable.

What appeared to be an uncomplicated life, it was only a phase of preparing me for the worst….

A few months after I turned 15 years old, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away within 2 months. The air was taken out of me…. I could have easily given up on everything that was going well for me. At fifteen, I lost my protection, guidance, and love.

My mother in her own way had created a special spirit in me: A spirit of survival and empowerment. If she was able to survive through many tough moments… why couldn’t I?

I found inner strength through the foundation that she left in me. At that time, I had no idea what, where, or who I was going to be or places that I would go. But there was one thing I was sure about, I would not give up.

Looking back at that time my mission was to excel in high school and get a scholarship to attend a great university. The memory of my mother gave me a sense of purpose.

During my high school years, I studied hard and was determined to do my best. At the beginning of my sophomore year, a high school alumni came to speak about different career paths. There was one career path that captured my attention. A man was talking about Electrical Engineering and about computers. I liked what he said about Electrical Engineering, but this computer stuff interested me more. If only I can combine both….

In my Junior year I discovered that there was a career called Computer Engineering. It combined Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I wanted to be that….

My high school had gotten some Commodore 64s and was offering computer classes. I had never used a computer before. I was just in love with the idea that you were able to make computers do different things. In my Junior year, I signed up for a programming course (VB with line numbers). I was the only girl in the class and I rocked it.

I did so well that my teacher chose me and two other boys to go to a State wide programming competition. I felt confident with my line code VB experience that I believed our team was going to take home an award.

So, on a Saturday morning, 3 kids from a city high school went to this competition and were humbled. This competition made me realize how much I did not know about programming. When I got there with my team, students had come with self-made computers… we came with paper and pencils. We were asked to solve problems using machine language (assembly) and Fortran…. We had no idea but we tried. We crashed and burned in this competition!!! All of us were disappointed how ill prepared we were but our high school did what it could to prepare us… we just did not have the resources like others.

I believe this was the turning point in my career choice. The programming competition turned my love for computers to a desire to learn more about this technology. I needed to learn to program as the high school kids that I competed with and beat them in their own game. I wanted to be better than them.

I graduated as Salutatorian from High School. I had reached my accomplishments that I set at that stage of my life. I was awarded a full tuition scholarship to Lehigh University for their Engineering school. My next goal was to become a successful Computer Engineer. I wanted to make the best out of this rewarding and challenging field that I was pursuing.

After four years, I successfully graduated as a Computer Engineer (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) with a minor in Economics. I felt that I had reached my goal of learning how to code in any language and being good at it.

During a recession, I managed to secure a job upon my graduation for a small company that had a niche in software for Chemical Industries.

Starting off in my career, I felt a somewhat lost. From high school to college, I knew exactly what my goal was and what I wanted to be… Now that I was there, there were so many paths to take and I did not know which direction to go. I needed to focus and find my way in my new stage of life.

Working for a small software company gave me experience in software development, customer service and more. In this company, I couldn’t hide behind my desk just coding. I had to interact with the customer directly. Long hours were not unusual… You delivered what you promised. This company taught me how to be a well-rounded IT individual. I feel fortunate that I had this experience starting in my career. I realized I enjoyed the entire lifecycle of software development and providing software solutions to customers made me satisfied. I wanted to do more of this…

This interest in software development opened many doors to many companies. I have worked as a software consultant for large and small companies. I have had the opportunity to be part of a startup that provided software solutions for pharmaceutical industries. I have worked for Health, Law, Financial, and Technology companies. Some of these jobs gave me the chance to travel both within the States and internationally. I was able to experience different work cultures and technologies. I saw processes and technologies that worked and did not work. I was a contributor in teams. I lead teams.

In my career, as my life, I am always aware that things can be unpredictable. So, having learned early that we need to experience and empower our journey in life, I always try to be conscious of new technologies. I might not be a master in all of them but at least I know what they are and how they are used. An example of learning new technologies is when I decided to switch to CyberSecurity to learn more about this industry. It was a great experience where I was able to start and lead an Application Security program for a company. This gave me knowledge of different technologies in this industry and new technologies used in application development.

Although I have learned and experienced different technologies, there was something still missing in my career that I needed to seek. I wasn’t sure what it was that I was looking for.

I took a deep look into myself and realized that I wanted to find something in life that will make me feel empowered. I reflected on every person that had touched my life both personally and professionally. I remembered my fourth grade teacher who believed in me and pushed me to be better when I was scared to be my best. I remembered my history teacher in high school who helped me grieve when my mother passed away. I remembered my siblings who love me and support me in my journey of life. I remembered my college friends who always believed in me and thought I was a rock star even when I didn’t do so well in certain subjects. I remembered professional friends and managers who I admired by the way they led and how they made me feel. I remembered some bad managers who I learned lessons of how I don’t want to be. I remembered how it feels to help others through my Big Brothers and Sisters, community outreach, and tutoring experiences.

From this reflection I learned that I wanted to empower others and lead others with my technical skills and life experiences.

A few months ago, a person who I admire professionally and personally, gave me a chance to reach this goal in my life. With encouragement and support of my loving husband, I decided to give this new experience and phase of my life a try.

I want to live a life that is successful and fulfilling both in my career and personal life. Success and fulfillment is a life with full enjoyment and no regrets.

Success is always a possibility as long as you try! Empower yourself by learning and experiencing life.

My Chants:

Self awareness

Know yourself, know your values

Confidence

Courage to speak up

You can’t be what you cannot see

Bring your authentic self

Leave what you touch better