finding passion & hEAlth — an EA Story

EA Stories is a series of conversations with current Engineering Ambassadors representing the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering at the University of Florida. The stories are shared with the hope that they’ll spark inspiration, introspection, or a lesson that otherwise may have gone un-explored.

Author’s Note –

When hearing about Juliana’s story of new growth and discovery I couldn’t help but feel a sense of understanding. I too have found myself at a crossroads where passions of mine didn’t seem to fit well with my personality and what I wanted in life. These times for me were extremely difficult, and I often found myself feeling empty due to the sense that I didn’t have a true calling in life. However, it was during these challenging times where, like Juliana, I eventually learned more about myself than if I were simply coasting through life. But what touched me most about her story is how she transformed her previous hardships in a way that allowed her to become healthier, while also making sure to extend what she learned to others all in an effort to share her resources, in the hopes that they can find happiness in life. Juliana’s passion for the world around her is truly infectious, and I only hope that comes through when hearing her story.

Tell me about yourself

My Name is Juliana Matiz, and I was born in Colombia. When I was six years old I moved to Michigan, and then when I was then I moved to Florida. I’m currently in my fifth year studying Environmental Engineering, with a minor in public health.

So what made you decide to pursue a minor in Public health?

When I came into UF and I always knew I wanted to do environmental studies. But it wasn’t until my Senior year of high school that I started thinking that I wanted to pursue engineering, because I always felt really strong in math, so I said why not?

In addition, I really liked subjects centered on health and biology, so I thought about also studying Pre-Med because I loved the people aspect within the medical field. So I came to UF and I was all set to begin my Pre-Med track, but then after my first year of college I found myself being completely overwhelmed with all of the work that came with studying both environmental engineering and Pre-Med; it just became too much to handle. Not to mention, I felt that environmental engineering didn’t really have enough of a connection to Pre-Med, and I eventually found out that I didn’t really want to be a doctor.

So, I found myself at a fork in the road.

I went and talked to my engineering advisor, and he suggested I look into a public health minor. And at the time I literally had no idea of what that was, but since I still liked specific health related fields, and I thought I’d give it a try! And public health very quickly became my passion.

It’s amazing. I absolutely love it!

So, it seems as though in your minor you find a lot of satisfaction?

Yea I love it!

I remember at convocation they told us that our minor could be anything we wanted it to be, and that it should be a passion of yours! And I never thought I’d feel that way about public health, but Wow! It’s a chance for me to take a break from engineering and heavy math, and it gives me a chance to write, which I’ve always loved to do, so it was a really good format for me.

It’s also a lot of speaking, which is something that I’ve always enjoyed, even if it involves speaking with complete strangers. I have a passion for people, and I never thought I could have a career out of a hobby of mine, giving me a chance to marry my education in engineering with my passion to help others.

You speak about your overall life goal and career a lot. Can you tell me more about that?

It actually just started to fall into place these last couple of months, and with this being my last semester before graduation I’ve really started to reflect on what I want to achieve once I leave UF.

After my internship this summer, I found that while I have a lot of qualities of an engineer, you know, I’m disciplined, I excel in my math and science courses, but I found that I don’t necessarily think like an engineer. I’m not as creative in certain skills, and while I was working with an engineering consultancy, and it was a great company, but I often didn’t feel like myself and I constantly seemed to be battling with how I was working in an industry that I originally thought I really wanted to be a part of, but I often felt inadequate. However, upon reflection during this challenging time, I discovered that public health was my true passion and it’s something that I feel I would be best at.

Once I decided on using my resources and skills to pursue a more public health oriented future, I began to find that my overall goal would be to stick with my education in engineering and obtain a job in an environmental engineering industry, hopefully working in air quality or drinking water design.

I plan to work for maybe 3–5 years in an effort to obtain my P.E. and to then work towards getting my Master’s in Public Health.

With this I want to take my skills and talents to either work with a nonprofit organization or even start my own, where I can go to third world countries or developing nations and build clean water wells or improve air quality all while helping to create and develop sustainable communities, where they would no longer need to be reliant on other nation’s resources.

When working on this I would really love to live among these communities, which would most likely be for the majority of my life. What really excites me is that while I find great comfort in being around my friends and family, I think that pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and spending time in all of these different countries would stretch me to achieve great things, which is really exciting.

And I understand that this plan is truly a life goal in the sense that I expect that this won’t happen in the next year, but that’s what drives me forward and motivates me.

How did this life goal come to you?

It was actually almost like a crazy epiphany. Ever since I can remember my life has been centered on faith, and my uncle who worked as a pastor often went on mission trips, and I always remember, even as a kid, being extremely interested in the work and hospitality that came about from them, and felt a stirring in my heart. Not to mention that through my life I was constantly exposed to selfless-ness and hospitality by my mother when she would invite complete strangers over for thanksgiving and all different things like that.

I’ve also always been passionate about service, helping others, and just talking to strangers, so this minor in Public Health has multiplied all these skills and interests by 20. Not to mention, my love for the subject continues to grow with the more classes I take.

It’s crazy that I’ve had the chance to experience this intense passion of mine and I can’t help but get emotional when I talk about the subject, because it has had such a huge part in transforming my mindset and way of life.

I love sharing my heart and my time, so public health became the perfect fit, and it allowed me to become more open minded and not be stuck to a single ideology.

This sounds like a very recent transformation. How would you compare where you are now to where you were when you first started college?

Wow, I have changed so much since I was a freshman.

I think the change was all throughout my time at the University of Florida, but I went through a drastic shift my sophomore year that really played a major role in who I am today.

So, quick backstory, I went to an extremely competitive high school, and my whole time there I had my eyes set on attending an Ivy League school, because at my high school it really seemed like they didn’t really encourage students to attend school in state.

And I’ll be completely honest, during my time there I remember feeling upset by the thought of attending UF, and once I started going here I was initially really unhappy.

But within my first month or so in attending the University of Florida, I had already begun to find myself embracing UF and all of the school pride and culture that came with it! I realized how much fun it was to be around all of these different people at such a big school, and my passions for studying engineering at the time really drove me forward to get more involved with the school and all it had to offer.

Not to mention, I became really involved with a church of mine here, and I was able to get more involved with that community, allowing me to grow the number of friendships I had. So in loving my education, my teachers, and having a close knit group of friends I really couldn’t find a reason to be upset anymore.

But my sophomore year I kind of hit a slump, where I felt like I was putting all my time and energy into the work that I was doing for school, and I began to feel absolutely terrible with all the effort I was putting in just to achieve good grades, and I constantly felt anxious and depressed about my self-worth. So much so that I decided to seek out the Health and Wellness Center and asked for some help in how to manage my stress and how to say no to people in order to prevent myself from being stretched too thin.

Additionally, I was able to learn how to truly take time to just rest and rejuvenate and set more realistic goals for myself. And this was a huge catalyst in shifting my work ethic, my faith, and my well-being.

Taking a Sabbath day on Sunday where I do no work, I’ve found that I’m able to better focus my energy less on myself and more on others. And this has allowed me to be so much more flexible, and when it comes to my school work I just focus on doing my best.

And finally, if you could go back to your freshman self, and give yourself one piece of advice what would it be?

Oh, that’s a good question… Probably, I would have to say to truly enjoy every moment. The good or the bad.

Don’t let your time at UF get away from you, because I feel that when I look back at all my years here I have loved every single moment.

Allow yourself to find joy in every moment, because life is short you know, so I feel like everyone should take part and absorb every moment that comes their way!!

Thank you for reading! EA Stories are created to recorded and publish the personal stories of the Gator Engineer, so that other students might find a spark of inspiration, introspection, or a lesson that otherwise may have gone unexplored.

If you would like to help, please comment below or message us on Facebook about what you thought! This series is just getting started and ever evolving, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.