Hi! My name is Alejandra and I am a Geoscientist at an oil and gas company. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico which I’m pretty sure had *some* influence into me becoming a lady geo. Growing up I always loved being outside whether that was the beach or the mountains or just my own backyard. I mean if you live in Puerto Rico how can you not love being outside? In school I always looked forward to my science classes (except biology but life is ironic like that because I ended up working with fossilized bacteria but WHATEVER) but I struggled a lot deciding on which science was my favorite. I loved astronomy and meteorology a lot and thought that this was my jam so when I graduated from high school I applied to the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez with the intent to pursue these… but I somehow ended up in Geology.
I switched majors to Geology my second semester of freshman year without even taking a course. My life has been so much freaking fun since that point. It’s funny but you know in romantic relationships people talk about “knowing he/she was the one from the moment I saw them”, well I knew that Geology was “the one” for me since the moment I read the course descriptions. I went to every field trip possible, did as many internships that I could and went to as many conferences as my bank account allowed. I ate, breathed, and drank Geology. After finishing my Bachelor’s degree in 2017, I decided to pursue a Master’s degree and got accepted into America’s brightest orange: Oklahoma State University.
Moving from Puerto Rico to Oklahoma was 100% the hardest thing I have done in my life, but I came to realize shortly after that if I had not made this jump my current life would not exist. I defended my Master’s thesis in May of 2019 and started as a full time Geoscientist shortly after in August. My blogs will mostly deal with things I’m going through as I transition from a full time grad student to a full time working professional as well as things near and dear to my heart like gender issues, discrimination, and honestly… how to be a badass Latina geo in a predominantly white male dominated industry. Hope you guys enjoy the ride with me.
Saludos in LadyGeo Sisterhood,
Ale
BreakerOfGlassCeilings will be posting on the blog a little bit later this month and on our Instagram during the next couple weeks while she’s in the field. I’m super excited to have her writing with us, and I hope you are, too!
My Life in the Geosciences 