Carlos Javier Nieves is 26-year-old who studied Industrial Engineering in the Andrés Bello Catholic University (ABCU or UCAB, as it is known by its Spanish abbreviation) from 2008 to 2015. He currently works as a Business Manager in the national company Grupo +58 (+58 Group).
He started studying at UCAB because his brother had also studied Industrial Engineering there. However, he had graduated five years before Nieves began his major. For the brothers, UCAB is the best university they could have chosen to study in.
It was difficult for me at the beginning of my degree because my family had very little resources. We come from the high part of La Vega. My parents didn’t study and had to make many efforts in order to help my three brothers through higher education. So by the time it was my turn to study for a degree, my parents were full of debt they had acquired in order to pay for my brothers’ studies.
In spite of everything, Nieves presented the university’s entry test and passed. He decided to find out what kind of financial support the university could offer him. Finally, Nieves asked for a scholarship and was granted a 50% discount off his tuition. With the help of his dad, his mom, and his sister, Nieves was able to pay the rest of his studies.
While he studied, Nieves participated in Baja UCAB, a group dedicated to building all terrain vehicles for international competitions. After that, he joined Protocolo UCAB. He also participated in the Industrial Engineering Day Organization Committee. He was also part of a group of student representatives.
While studying, Nieves worked in CIDI UCAB, helping professors Henri Gasparín and Demóstenes Quijada with simulation projects. He later did his thesis in this subject and, with one of his classmates, opened the line of investigation in Theory of Games in the School of Engineering.
After finishing his fifth semester, Nieves started working. It was then that the young man understood how much the university’s financial support had helped him.
With my job, I noticed that I needed a great amount of time every day in order to cover my responsibilities. It was difficult for me because I had to go to work, then to the university, study in the subway, go back to work, and so on. That’s why, without a doubt, the comfort and surplus of free time that the university gave me with its financial support during half of my degree helped me a lot with my studies.
About the importance of supporting the university’s scholarship funds, Nieves comments that it is vital to continue contributing to the nation’s education.
UCAB generates the best professionals, or at least in my area there are few universities that have a level as high [as UCAB’s]. In order to build Venezuela back up again, we must depend on well qualified, trained professionals. That is what the UCAB is dedicated to: creating experts with values, knowledge, and a motivation to be better every day. If a donation, small as it may be, can help one of those students, I’m certain that would make them more satisfied than any other thing would. Who knows, maybe the next Venezuelan President or someone with enough eagerness to change the country and set it on a good route will come from UCAB.
