It’s been a long road
It really has been a long road. Last night, I finally delivered my Capstone project after a slight delay. It went extremely well and our hard work really showed.
I first started this MBA journey in September 2013, and since then, a lot of events have occurred personally in my life. I lost four of my family members including both my grandparents, my baby niece, and my mother. When I lost my mother in March of this year, it was such a profound moment in my life not only because she was no longer going to be here, but also because her death brought something out of me that I never knew existed: my voice.
My mother, a Colombian-born woman, was not the best speaker. She could definitely have a full conversation, but her limitations in English caused several hardships for her career as she wasn’t able to articulate her points across as well as compared to some of her counterparts. Unfortunately, this also meant that she was taken advantage of in several situations. I vowed that I would be the voice that she never got a chance to have and on the day of her funeral, I found my voice and delivered a beautiful speech in her honor.
Last night, I learned to use my voice again to deliver my Capstone presentation and it feels so great to say that it was a success. Of course, it involved several weeks of practice, but in the end and in front of a crowd of people, it really did come down to using my voice to deliver the message in my own words. So to me, finishing my MBA is not just about putting a title to my name, it really means learning how to speak for the first time.
Andrea Lebron 