Roberto de la Torre, who studied civil engineering at the National University of Engineering (UNI), is a young man who raised the name of Peru at the prestigious Imperial College London in the UK, having graduated as the first place in his country for a master’s degree in structural engineering among professionals from around the world .
The 28-year-old talent was able to achieve this goal thanks to his efforts, perseverance and support for the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship of the National Scholarship and Educational Loan Program (Pronabec) of the Ministry of Education.
Roberto’s path was not easy: before his admission to Imperial College London, the young man applied to five different universities abroad until he received his first positive response in March 2020.
The panorama was complicated because in that month the COVID-19 pandemic reached Peru. Nothing stopped him and he was finally able to travel and start his year-long lessons on the European continent.
As soon as he entered the British University, he decided to be one of the best students in his class. “Why does a Peruvian not appear at a university in another country?” he asked. So he did everything in his power to achieve it until he succeeded, in the pride of his family and Beru.
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Roberto also asserts that the additional advantage that he had over other students is that he had work experience, a characteristic common to those who start their master’s studies in our country; While in the UK, postgraduate students are generally young adults who have just finished university.
“Work experience is a requirement to apply for the Pronabec Bicentennial Generation Scholarship, which I think is very good. When working, there are problems (one finds), or notions that no one has seen in undergraduate, that when you study it at a master’s degree you become familiar with This helps to understand it more easily,” recalls the talent, who was born in Lima, but identifies himself as Huancaino because all his primary, secondary and academic preparations were carried out in the Junin capital.
In addition to Roberto’s efforts and work experience, he admits that spending his time only studying, and not having to work, was a huge advantage while studying abroad.
“Scholarship takes away your worries. One forgets paying as a burden. I had colleagues who studied and worked at the same time. It seemed to everyone that the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship was very fair and that there is no one similar in other parts of the world,” she acknowledges the talent.
Now, Roberto is considering applying in Peru all the knowledge he learned during his master’s degree in structural engineering.
As he explains, this is a civil engineering discipline responsible for evaluating the resistance of infrastructure works, such as buildings and bridges, to ensure their safety and operation during their use and seismic events.
In the long run, the talented would like to set up his own engineering consultancy and teaching firm at UNI, where he studied his undergraduate degree and graduated third on his class.
I find the motive in the phrase: “Effort outweighs talent” and try to act like this; That is, when you really put your mind to it, you can achieve it”, emphasizes Roberto.
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