I am a 22 years old industrial engineer, Eager to start a path of solidarity, by helping other people in a health care way.
I have been actively working in medical brigades, by applying my knowledge of management in the logistics and creations of brigades. I want to tell you the story of why I am interested in this path, and becoming a global peace ambassador.
True strength comes from being able to do the right thing even though you do not want to do it. That motto has driven me a great part of my young adult life, for though Rome was not built in a day, maybe with good time management it could have been built up in two.

There is a famous park in my country called “La Tigra”. It is a beautiful park, full of exotic plants and wild animals. As a kid, my family and I used to go once in a while, and every time I went, I was presented with two paths: to ride in a car to the top and fastly slide down through a zip line as excitingly fun as it was, or to walk all the way through a long path to the top that was as long and hard as it seemed tedious and uncanny. As a kid, I always chose the first one. It was easy, fast and fun; all the things that seemed important at that time. It was not until I grew older, that just for the challenge I decided to go through the second path, and just as I had imagined it was long, hard and tedious. Despite being an athletic person, after two hours I could barely breathe, my legs were numb, my heart was beating fast and the night was catching up. But it was then that I saw “The View” for the first time, through the haze of the sky and the gloss of the sun. In fact, the most beautiful picture appeared in front of me. The most conspicuous art of God, a perfect canvas full of the warming colors of the trees and nature of the park and the indomitable wrath of the sky bursting with light, giving into the sunset.
Suddenly, I was able to breathe again, my legs were no longer numb and my heart was as steady as a clock. I learned that day that although the path can sometimes be hard, it can lead to a joy of unspeakable measures. The idea that the hard path was the one with the most beautiful view, directed my life since that day. I started choosing my goals and activities not only thinking of the fun and fast results, but also valuing the hard process and the view it could create, living by the motto that true strength comes from being able to do the right thing even when you do feel like doing it and no matter how hard the path is. Although I discovered it until later, this way of life has also guided the lives of my parents. Both my mom and dad are doctors, so I grew up watching how they continuously were out of the house day and night in the hospital and how they could never have time for other things. As a kid, I used to wonder why someone would study a career so arduous and demanding, which is one of the reasons why I did not study medicine. Instead I decided to study industrial engineering. Either way, I am very good at it, analyzing and solving problems, building processes and making better ways to do products. I like my job and all the things I can do because of what I studied.

I started working two years prior to my graduation in a bottle cap factory, in a position highly related to my field where I thrive and excelled as an engineer. There I was a quality management assistant, where I was first introduced to the labors that I would have to completely manage once I graduated. Through this experience, I learned how to properly manage workers, how to establish new lines of processes and how to supervise quality aspects of the line of production. One day while I was working at the bottle cap factory, my father asked me for help in a medical brigade to help children of low resources with malnourishment problems. I accepted and was in charge of the logistics of the process, the collection of the donations and the line of production of the dewormer kits. We were even able to gather toys and food for all the children. I used every tool and experience I had gathered in my career as an industrial engineer to help as many kids as possible.

When the day came to treat those kids and apply the medicine; we drove with all the donations and doctors to a remote part of the country. The first thing I saw when we arrived were the children. They were sick and they were sad because they woke up too early for the treatment medicine. My job had been done, I was not a doctor so I could not treat those children, but I could help the process to be shorter and faster for them. So, I did it. At the end of the day, I was in charge of the toy donations, so I gathered them in line and gave them to them, and that is where I saw “The View” for the second time. The first kid that came to me was a little girl aged 9, one of the bunch I had seen when I arrived. She was no longer sad or tired, she was happy because of the gifts and she had the most beautiful smile ear to ear I had ever seen. There was no haze nor gloss this time, no beautiful sunset or famous park. Just a kid who previously was sad and sick and now she was not. I knew right at that moment, this was a canvas of God too, as beautiful and warming as the trees of the park and with an indomitable human spirit as the wrath of the sky. A perfect “View”. That day I understood why my parents were more often than none in the hospital. They were helping, healing people, and watching “The View”, feeling the joy that comes from putting all their knowledge and efforts into making people healthier and happier, and that day I was able to feel it too.

That day I decided to change the focus on my future career path, to the health industry, to be able to help more people in a deeper way along with my industrial engineering degree. As a result, I started working as administrative manager of a homeopathic medicine clinic where I was able to apply all the knowledge I learned in my previous jobs. As a result, I established better processes of accepting patients, I established an inventory system for the 1000+ medical products that we sell in the clinic, and I created a more systematic control of patients, by implementing an accounting and inventory program system, called MONICA.

Indubitably, making something you are proud of is one of the most essential things in life, although money, or fame can generate a lot of joy, real value in life comes from applying your skills and mind for the sake of other people. Once I put my mind into something I become relentless until I achieve it. I am not scared of the hard path as I am able to work under pressure due to the fact that I like challenges and finding the best ways to solve them. I like planning and developing new ways to solve problems, standardizing them to help the next person to come after me. Furthermore, I have always been an athletic person. I truly believe that if you train the body, the soul and mind will follow. That is why since a young age, I have been practicing and learning many sports, such as soccer, volleyball, basketball, and the latest of them all bodybuilding. I have found out that to discover the extent of beauty and strength your body is capable of is an accomplishment every man should aim to achieve. Nonetheless, to walk the path of bodybuilding is not easy. Consequently, by practicing bodybuilding I learned discipline, perseverance and patience due to the fact that the process is slow and you will only see benefits until months later.

Overall, I believe that every little piece is important to make a whole professional, that is why, while completing my bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, I have also been taking some side courses such as how to properly use Excel, how to manage and control budgets, and obtained a certification to audit the ISO 9000:2015 Norms to properly supervise and audit quality management systems. Studying industrial engineering gave me the tools to be able to create better processes and how to manage them. This is why I am eager to use this knowledge to find better ways to manage health care with the help of the knowledge I am aiming to learn in your masters degree programme .

Human health care is not an easy path, and it is not fast or fun either. It is hard and strict as the long path of the park but it is also full of hope, generating a view as beautiful and amazing as the one of the greatest mountains or parks. Health care in Honduras is not really good due to bad management and corruption, the public hospitals are full with patients in the floors, and bad attending procedures. In my country, the healthcare structure in general lacks systematic procedures and good management. Trying to change this is in my opinion the hardest path I will encounter in my life, but ‘‘The View’’ I will see when I accomplish it and help many families and kids in need is one far greater than the ones of any great mountain, park or paradise. That is why I am looking forward to becoming a global peace ambassador, to gather the tools and knowledge to be able to help more people, and manage to watch the greatest view of all.