Jonatan Aquino received a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Chicago with a Fulbright-BECAL scholarship. “Knowledge is power and it is wealth. It is the basis of the country’s wealth », he proudly stated.
Overcoming different types of barriers has been a constant in the personal and professional life of Jonatan Aquino, 28, from Villarrica, department of Guairá. This month he successfully completed his master’s degree, which he started in April last year. Since he was little he managed to take advantage of the opportunities that could be offered to him to study in his family, who comes from a humble social class, according to himself.
His undergraduate training was possible through an Itaipu scholarship with which he was awarded to study Industrial Engineering at the University of the Southern Cone of the Americas, but before that he had already completed a Bachelor’s Degree in International Commerce at the American University. He studied in high school at a public school, which is the Natalicio Talavera Regional Center for Education in Villarrica.
With Jonatan, the importance of scholarships can be demonstrated as a State policy for the formation of advanced human capital for people with limited economic resources. He took full advantage of the opportunities offered by the Government for studies, both in the country, through Itaipu, and abroad through the “Don Carlos Antonio López” Postgraduate Scholarship Program Abroad (BECAL).
The recently ex-Fulbright-BECAL fellow recounts that 22 years ago, when he was only 6 years old, one afternoon his father took him to the CCPA to study the English language, which “inside was considered a privilege”, for which he qualifies his father “a complete visionary”.
“The fees were affordable, but the materials were expensive for me back then. I still remember what they had told me back then: Son, we won’t be able to pay for the book, but go katu anyway. That “andate katu equal” formed in me the courage to overcome all shame and eventually resort to other creative solutions for materials such as photocopies, etc. and face challenges, although the conditions were not always optimal,” said the former Fulbright-BECAL fellow, through his Facebook.
He says that he went to his English classes with a recycled notebook from the previous year and a “colgate” pencil case every Monday and Thursday, religiously, without missing any class, where he learned to relate to older people, since most of the time He was the youngest in his class. “My classmates from elementary school even told me to enjoy life instead of studying English (they said it without malice, obviously there was a time for everything)”, he expresses.
His insistence on studying English is now a recent graduate of the University of Illinois in the USA. “This challenge cost me a lot: sleep, hours, virtual social life, adaptation, technical vocabulary in another language, situations that sometimes went beyond my strength! But I did it by the grace of God! It was worth having so much patience with me, from the bottom of my heart! What one sows projecting into the future, one fully reaps. I thank the Embassy of the United States and BECAL, together with the Fulbright-CAL Scholarship, for the opportunity to finish my Postgraduate degree here in the United States”, concludes Jonatan.
