ELC teaching assistant Gliseth La Verde had multiple dreams when she was young but had a few situations preventing her from pursuing her dream career. However, she learned to accept it and now is doing something she loves.
What follows is Gliseth’s story, in her own words:
I am from Venezuela, however my father is Italian. I lived in Valencia, Venezuela, my whole life until I turned 27 years old. I have always enjoyed living there because I was always close to my family at all times and we would have many traditions that we would do all together. One tradition that I loved as a child was when summer started and all my family stayed over at my grandparent’s house in Valencia we would always have a fun time there being surrounded by family. Now that I have moved away from my family, things have changed, and now I do different traditions with my kids. I feel like family is very important to me because in my family it wasn’t always just my mom, my dad, and my siblings it was also my aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents, so I would consider my family really big and I always had a close relationship with all of them.
As I was growing up I wanted to pursue a medical career but I eventually realized that wasn’t really for me, and so I ended up taking chemical engineering. I majored in chemical engineering and I got a bachelor’s degree. I really enjoyed my time in the university and I am glad I took this career. There are no moments I would say I regret in making a specific decision, because all of those moments I take them as a lesson, and they all contribute to the person I am today. However, I was really into journalism. I wanted to study journalism but it was not offered in my city. We have a lot of journalists in Venezuela, but you can only study that career in the capital (Caracas). At the end, living overseas and moving with my own family with four kids, I developed my career as a ELC teacher and I became a teaching assistant in AISB.
If I could give one piece of advice to someone it would be always to follow your dreams. When I wanted to become a journalist I stopped pursuing my dream because of the place I lived in, but honestly, even if something is preventing you from pursuing something, don’t give up immediately, because other moments will come where you can pursue your dreams. For example, when I moved countries maybe I could have taken that opportunity to study journalism, but I didn’t because soon after my first daughter was born. What I am basically trying to say is that situations change, so you should always hold on to your dreams because you never know if you are able to pursue them later in life.