Attracting Mexico's Finest
Monday, 21 September 2009 21:01
The University of Arizona’s unique geographic position in the borderlands makes it ideally placed to not only attract the best talent the United States has to offer, but also some of Mexico’s most gifted students.
Hector Sosa, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Physics, is one of those Mexican nationals who made the journey north to the UA.
The 23-year-old native of Mexico City completed his undergraduate degree at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) before making the decision to study at the UA.
“I choose the University of Arizona because it has a very prestigious physics department especially in the field that I’m working, called AMIO physics or if you want atomic molecular and optical physics, it’s one of the top ten universities in the U.S,” Sosa said.
Sosa is not only studying here at the UA; after passing an English proficiency test he was deemed able to teach classes. However, the combination of studying and teaching often proves to be very time consuming.
“It’s a little tough. My roommates always tell me I spend too much time at the university. I enjoy it a lot. I enjoy teaching, sharing the knowledge that I gather and also studying. I think it’s a very good combination because I can recap the knowledge that I know,” Sosa said.
Sosa's busy schedule means that he hasn’t been able to explore his adopted city as much as he would like to, but his impression of the city has been mostly positive.
“I think the people are very nice, the weather not so much, I come from a place that has the same weather so I’m used to it,” Sosa said.
His brief moments spent away from his studies are often spent in the company of other international students, with whom he has a special bond, even if he finds it difficult to understand some of the accents. Although a high achiever academically, it’s in his free time that the competitive streak within this gifted young man truly appears.
“Especially playing monopoly that I play a lot with my roommates and unfortunately they don’t have very good luck with me,” Sosa said.
Despite the fun that he has with his Australian roommates, like many international students there are still many challenges that he has to deal with on a day-to-day basis. A key issue for many students is a sense of homesickness, and there is nothing surprising about what Sosa says he misses most about home.
“My family, my girlfriend, the food because in Mexico we have very good food so I miss that...It’s very hard, mostly for my girlfriend because I love her so much and we like to spend time together, but my family and I talk to them every now and then on the Internet so I can handle it I think,” Sosa said.
While he admits it is many years in the future, Sosa has given some thought to life after his studies at the UA.
“I’m planning on doing a post-doc at another university here in the U.S. and maybe work in a laboratory at a university,” Sosa said.
Although recognizing the special bond the UA has with Mexican students, Sosa acknowledges that more work needs to be done to attract Mexico’s best and brightest, and cement the UA's reputation as the college of choice for those in the border region.
“The University of Arizona, it has a lot of population of Mexican people, but I think they need to do some work to gather students from Mexico,” Sosa said.
Written by Christopher Kelly
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