Student Life

Day 6

The main reason I came to Miami was to attend grad school.  I was accepted at the Florida International University for an engineering master's program and thankfully with the big help of my dad, I was able to cover the program.

The plans initially were very simple: study, graduate, go back home but well, life had other plans for me, graduating from FIU did open a lot of doors for me and I will forever be grateful for that, while additionally help me feel at home and welcome in a foreign country.

Last night, one my way back home, I passed FIU and ask my nephew if he was interested in a drive by, and he gladly accepted. We drove around for a few, show him the different buildings, talking a little bit of history and such.

Today, he said "after you finish working, we are going there to bike around the campus", I told him that biking was not a good idea because it will be late and that I wanted to show him a bit more of the city, but that we could go to the campus, walk around a bit, grab dinner and continue our adventure in his last night in Miami.  

You see, going back to the main campus is a thing I do fairly often, sometimes just to walk around, other times to attend events or just to show it to friends/family, I am that stupidly proud.  Walking with my nephew made me realize how hastily and stupidly I made my decisions to study engineering, because I don't come from a family of engineers (mom/dad in the health field) and no family member or close friend were engineers.  I didn't have any major knowledge about what engineering was besides the fact that you "have to be good at math and science" and well, I was, I liked computers and technology, so I guess that was the right career path.

That made me think a lot about how I lacked a proper mentor during my teenage years to help me make a good decision on what to expect in my career or my studies. I told all these stories to my nephew kind of expecting him to wonder about his future and what he wants (he is currently in his junior year of high school) but didn't seem much interested.  He was very impressed with the campus, but I think that college (as of now) is not really in his interests, but there's a limit to how much I can help someone who is not showing major interest.

And even though he was asking lots of questions, whenever the answers veered into anything related to STUDY (e.g., this is the library where you study and get books or that's where students gather for classes, etc.) his interest went downhill.  We touch bases on tuition cost and the sacrifices that are needed, and well, that didn't help much.

Anyways, I wish I had a mentor then and I wish I could mentor my nephew, but life have taught me that is very hard to help someone who doesn't want to be helped and sometimes that's an issue I kind of struggle to accept and not feel remorseful about it.  I can have the best of intentions but if the other party is not interested or doesn't really put the effort needed, I can get very dismissive.  I guess I kind of feel some sort of disrespect for my time and effort.  Am I wrong?

I do wish however that he could attend college and finally help his family to get out of the vicious poverty cycle that the lack of higher education/professionals tend to have.

Hoping for a brighter future.