What Inspires Me in Life by Paula R.
I think that the first step to describe what inspires me in my life is telling you about who is my bigger inspiration: my mother, a crucial influence in who I am today and my plans for the future. She was the first woman in her family to go to college and due to a lack of financial resources; she had to study a career that was not her passion. Nevertheless, she decided to make the best of that experience and when she graduated as a bacteriologist, she strived to become an entrepreneur.
In Colombia, it is extremely difficult to build a company from the ground up, because there are not many investors willing to risk their capital in a new enterprise and getting a loan from a financial institution requires a certain level of income that is unreasonable for a start-up. As a result, my mother started her company many times and went bankruptcy just as many.
During a brief period, she even had to accept a job at a multinational company as a salesperson of medical supplies, but she knew that she wanted more in her life than working for someone else, thus she quit her job and set her office in our house. I remember that she woke up early every day to load boxes of tubes to draw blood into her car to make deliveries to hospitals all by herself.
I must admit that at that time I thought that she was crazy; because she was risking a steady position in a big company for what it seems a chimera. One day, I decided to confront her about it and her reply has been my beacon ever since: I want to be the kind of mother that proves you that you can do what you love; no matter how many times you have failed or the obstacles you have to face or even the skepticism of your love ones.
A little after that, my father left us, and my mother had to provide for my sister and me. Fortunately, her company was growing; finally, all her hard work was paying off in the moment that we needed the most. Nowadays, my mother is still facing some challenges with her company but as I became an adult, I could not be more proud of her. She has definitely made us empowered, autonomous and driven women.
Furthermore, she has made me understand that pursuing your dreams gives you independence and courage and that is why I am putting all my efforts in study an LL.M program at a world-renowned university. It has been my longtime dream to learn in a rich academic environment about different legal systems, in a community of people with diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds, and I am convinced that with the help of the BUSINESS PLAN Scholarship I will reach my aspirations.
In spite the fact that I did not inherent my mother’s interest in doing business, her struggles showed me that people need real opportunities to fulfill their dreams, especially those who are part of historically discriminated groups, including women. In consequence, I came to be passionate about equality, and decided to become a lawyer to try to close the gaps in our society using laws and regulations.
Moreover, some of my favorite books, including The Trial by Franz Kafka and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, portrayed the law as a powerful mean to achieve the good or bad purposes of society. However, throughout my career I discovered that is not sufficient to give people rights and freedoms on paper; you must give them the means to enforce them in reality.
Seeing that and taking into consideration my interest in both law and economics, I chose to pursue a Master’s in Economic Law to have a broader perspective and a different set of skills to analyze issues related to egalitarianism, economic growth and development. This program gave me a new perspective about the connection between law and reality that I would like to explore more during my LL.M.
Simultaneously, it woke up my curiosity in researching and writing; hence, I initiated my path as a columnist in the legal newspaper Notinet, where I discuss current legal issues. In addition, I took great pleasure in attending conferences around Latin America related to law and economics, such as the Latin American and Iberian Law and Economics Association (ALACDE) annual conferences, where I get the chance to do two of my favorite things: traveling and debating ideas with new colleagues.
Eventually, I began working as a lawyer in the financial sector, and I once had the misperception that my job there was going to be limited to only producing more money. Nonetheless, I was surprised to learn that this sector plays a crucial role in distributing wealth and offering opportunities to people. In fact, being a public servant at the government agency in charge of monitoring and regulating the financial institutions in Colombia (Financial Superintendency of Colombia) has shown me that access to financial services can be life changing.
This experience encouraged me to take on several MOOCs, exploring the relationship between access to financial services, income growth equality and development, including “Just Money: Banking as if Society Mattered” and “From Poverty to Prosperity: Understanding Economic Development”. In the last few years, I feel like I am connecting the dots in my life, because I discovered that the study of financial inclusion combines my youthful dreams about doing something concrete to help people in my country, like my mom, my adult aspirations of learning about equality and my professional career.
Additionally, I have discovered a completely new world in terms of technology and its applications to improve people’s access to financial services and part of my interest in study abroad is to learn more about these disruptions. In fact, now I am the professor of a class about financial regulation and innovation, where we debate about how current phenomena, such as crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies, are changing the rules of financial systems, and I believe that this LL.M. program is an invaluable opportunity to acquire deep knowledge about these topics to share with my students.
To sum up, I am a very committed and motivated person, who loves to read, to write, to go to the movies, to take online courses and to teach, but above all who has a passion for justice. Giving my life story and my professional experience, I would like the chance to pursue this program, with the support of the BUSINESS PLAN Scholarship, in order to learn from a multidisciplinary perspective how to create opportunities through the financial sector for people to exercise their rights.
