What is a university?

When you finish high school, you need to go to a university and study a career that can define your life and what you do until you retire. A university is a bigger institute; there are different kinds of careers with several bachelor's degrees that teach you diverse subjects. In summary, a university is a place like a normal school; the difference is that it isn’t mandatory to go; it is by your will. I remember when I was 12 years old, I watched many movies where the characters studied at a university, and those kinds of movies show that it’s thrilling to study at a university. So, I had wished to go to a university and graduate, have a good job in a tall building with a beautiful office, and buy a house. I told my parents that dream, just because in the movies I thought that it was cool to study at a university. What movies didn’t tell me that it was just in the United States and that did not apply in Central America. So, in this blog entry, I will tell you why we need to study at the university; second, I'll explain to you how I chose my major; and finally, I'll share my point of view about universities here.

Maybe if you live in Guatemala, you can think that it’s a waste of time to study at the university, and it’s true. I think if your family supports you and advises you to study there, and you don’t want to, you are dumb. What can I ask you at this moment, and convince you need to take advantage of that opportunity? First, in this country, only 4.56 percent of people can invest to study there. Imagine that! You are lucky! But maybe you continue to think that it’s not a good idea to apply to a university. Okay, I can give you another reason: you can get knowledge, and it can change your perspective on how you see things. You can even become a scholar. But if you don’t want to study at a university, ok, I respect your opinion, but you are really a fool because you have that opportunity, and you want to waste it. But if you don’t have the opportunity to apply to a university, don’t give up! You can do it! You are a great person because you know how valuable it is to study at the university.

When I finished high school, I needed to apply to a university, but I didn’t want to. Now I think that I was silly because my family wanted to study veterinary medicine at the university, and I wasted that opportunity. So, after finishing high school, I took a vocational exam, and supposedly I could study psychology, become a sworn translator, or study international relations and social work. First, second, and third careers I could not choose because I was having some troubles myself, but I was sure that I had the profile to be a professional with those careers. So maybe in the future I would have the opportunity to study those careers and I would take that opportunity. Then my last option was social work, and I can say that I picked that career because I thought it could be easy to study it, but reality slapped me on the face. It’s not easy to be a social worker. You need to deal with a lot of problems that people don’t care about in their lives, but that’s another essay. I can tell you that a career is interesting, especially if you want to change people's conformist mentalities.

In our country, we have several universities that are cheaper and more expensive. It depends on what university you want to study at, but from my point of view, I can tell you that if you don’t want to pay tuition, you can study at San Carlos. It’s a good university with a lot of careers, but at the same time, this university has a lot of troubles with its administration. The second university is Francisco Marroquín and del Valle, because those universities have a lot of technology that you can use in your career and gain more experience in your career, but those universities are so expensive. But you can also find cheaper universities like Mariano Galvez, Da Vince, Rural, Panamericano, Mesoamericano, etc.

As I demonstrated in this blog, we can take advantage of the opportunity to study at a university if we so desire. Obviously, in our country, it doesn’t matter if you study at a university because business just/want you to have experience, know another language, or have contacts. But it’s necessary to study at a university because, as humans, we need to get knowledge and see other perspectives, not just the ones that society gives us.