Julio Lopez

What is the one piece of career advice you wish someone gave you when you were younger?

Don't worry so much about making enough money or getting into a "good", "safe", and "worth it" major in college. Instead, focus on your passions and what make you happy, think about the lifestyle you want to live in the future, and what you value most in life; then once you have all of these answers, decide on a career that fulfills everything you want in life.

How did you pick your career? Did you know all along?

I went through about 15 different majors in college, thinking that the next one was "The One", but it never was. I kept thinking about a job that I could make a good income, make my parents proud (very important for me as a first generation college student), and a good job market so I could land a good job. In reality, you may never find a dream job, which I believe is the case for me, instead, I found a job where I can work with students and have fun, while also fulfilling my most important value; time. Being a teacher is an amazing path for me because although the work is tough and involves long-hours and a lot of patience, I get to spend summers off and have the chance to spend the most important days of the year with family; which is what matters the most to me in life.

Did anyone ever oppose your career plans when you were young or push you in a direction you did not want to go?

Absolutely, when I first got to college, my dream was to be an Astrophysicist, I loved science and discovering more about the unknown was so fascinating to me so I was sure it was what I wanted to do. My first meeting with my academic advisor proved to be a negative one, he told me that because my high school did a poor job of teaching me math above Algebra 2, I would have to take very low level math classes to begin with and that majoring in Physics seemed impossible because I was already so behind, which unfortunately broke me emotionally and I had to struggle in choosing a different major. Now in my senior year, I have discovered that the information he told me was simply not true, I absolutely could've majored in Physics and taken extra math classes during the summer and winter mini sessions to catch up, while taking core classes while I caught up in my math sections, but instead he told me there was no hope. This experience is one that I've never forgotten and something that kind of inspired me three years later to pursue a career in education/education counseling, because I believe that every new student in college or in high school should not have their dreams put down because of a lack of compassion or understanding of the system. My goal is to help students achieve their dream career paths through my guidance and motivation.