I didn’t know what consulting was at first. When I first heard about consulting, I thought it was like, “Wow, it’s such a sexy, amazing industry for really smart people.” I was like, “There’s no way in life I’m going to be doing consulting. It’s for really smart people and I am not that smart. There’s no way a company is going to even look at me.” I mean, it sounded nice, but I just let the thought go because I didn’t think I was qualified enough. But I knew what type of job I wanted. I knew what type of skills I had, that I had developed throughout internships, which internships are a huge reason as to why I am in consulting today. Because you start acquiring skills, and you start going into different industries because that’s what I usually recommend going to different industries while you’re in college. Take 1,2,3,4 internships every summer, every semester, as much as you can because the opportunity of changing companies every six to three months, whatever the case is, it is not going to go back once you graduate from college, you’re going to take a full time job. And I mean, you’re expected to stay there one to two years minimum. And if you want to move on, you move on. But every six to nine months, or three months, that opportunity as a student won’t be there. So I took advantage of that. And I took as many internships as I could, and I was working different jobs just so I could experience, “Hey, what does it feel to work for a logistics supply chain company? Do I like it? How does it feel? How do I like to be in sales?” I did sales. How does it feel? How do I like to work for a technology company, but in accounting, or in finance, or in supply chain? I tried all those different fields, because I had the opportunity, right, and we can talk more on how to get those opportunities. But the point is after all those internships, after all the classes and everything going on, I started defining myself, not specifically the title, or the industry that I wanted to work on, which is fine if you do. But in my case, I didn’t. More of what I wanted to do. I knew I liked problem solving. I knew eventually I want to be a manager, I want to be leading teams. I like continuous improvement, seeing something that can be improved, and thinking, “How do I make it better?” Ideas like that. I started writing them down, and I’m a huge believer of, if you write something down, it’s way better than relying on your own mind to like, remember, “What did I say two weeks ago that I wanted to do,?” Whereas like, I can go back to my notes and say like, “Hey, I heard about this new skill at work and I really like what I’m doing.” And I think that’s how you call it, you’re gonna write it down just so you don’t lose it. And you go back to your notebook and say, like, “Oh, yeah, these are some of the things that I’ve been writing down across, you know, different semesters or internships and you start shaping the type of position that you want.” And for me, like I said, it was problem solving, being able to, you know, find the issue and fix it, and think, “How do we continuously improve. I didn’t know that consulting had all this, you know, these qualities as a job, I just knew that this is what I want to do. What can give me the satisfaction of doing all these things? And I think I went to the career center to talk about like, “Okay, this is what I want to do, what jobs can allow me to do these?” And they mentioned, you know, consulting is one of them. I didn’t choose consulting, I think consulting chose me. And just knowing what you want to do, and being able to self reflect and ask yourself, like, what is it that I want to be doing, you know, after college, five years after college. Those questions that you need to sit down and give yourself time to ask yourself those questions. I feel like that’s the most important thing.

[To see more of Maria’s views, explore our Career Conversations feature Direct path towards your consulting feature.]

Thank you, Maria, for sharing such amazing insights from your career path.

Maria had a very inspirational real life story that brought her to where she is now. I can see how through her journey to find her dream career, she was also able to better know herself and her passions. As much as Maria exudes confidence in her knowledge, I believe that part of that confidence is owed to the internships that she participated in. These internships were able to shape her into a person that can demonstrate her essence, amongst many people in a career dedicated to work as a team. She was able to realize the value she brought to any company she works at because of her experiences. And through this realization, one is able to to make their presence known at a company in a positive manner, by being part of the team but also playing other roles that make them essential to the team success. This can only be done through one’s true passion for one’s career, as well as those experiences and internships that one isn’t very fond of, because something is learned every opportunity taken and can only be put to further use into establishing a powerful presence.

We can see this in Maria’s story because when she first started, she wasn’t so sure consulting was for her. But after her college experiences, she was able to identify what it was she wanted and aligned her with the career that would enhance her strongest skills. She was able to recognize her needs and wants for a job, which translated into a leader in the workplace. I believe Maria is ahead of the game per se, considering she was able to answer the hardest question, which is what are you passionate about? If there is anything we can take from Maria’s story is that college is a place to learn but more than anything, it’s an institution that allows us to better recognize our passions, so that when our skills are put to the test, we can make our presence known.