success stories

I first met Marta when she was a 17 year old student in my Social Studies 2.0 - Life Skills class while she was living on her own in a one room apartment, working 30 hours a week to pay her apartment rent, health care, and food and still managing her time to study and have the highest grade point average in her high school class. She then pushed out of her comfort zone by applying to a college hundreds of miles from her apartment and friends in Providence, Rhode Island. The college was Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Marta was not only accepted but awarded a full scholarship because of her outstanding brand.

Her transition from a Providence public school to an elite university like Georgetown presented significant challenges like ‘how do I fit in’ with so many students from private schools and wealthy families as well as meeting the rigorous academic expectations of one of America’s highest ranked universities. Marta did. She graduated from Georgetown University with a 3.4 GPA double major in 'Government' and 'Sociology' and a minor in 'Spanish'. She was quickly hired by the Follett Corporation as a Regional Manager in southern Florida; she also became an Adjunct Professor at Miami Dade Community College in Miami, Florida.

After two years at Follett and continuing to build and communicate with her network of successful people in a variety of careers, Marta decided her career interests were in International Government Service. She applied to Columbia University in their International Studies Graduate School. She was accepted and awarded the Charles Rangel Fellowship. After completing an internship in Bogota, Colombia at the United States Embassy, Marta was accepted into the United States Diplomatic Corp and has served as a United States Diplomat at American Embassies in Vientiane, Laos, Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Islamabad, Pakistan.

Most observers would agree Marta Aparicio is a very successful woman. She has become a role model for the many people who have had the opportunity to meet her or who know her story. Marta often attributes her success to a ‘no excuses’ work ethic, her ‘grit’ (i.e. a never give up attitude), her ability to adapt to new situations and communities, and her focus on continuing to develop her already impressive personal brand which enables her to build a network of successful, honorable, influential people.

Marta would also note many great teachers and mentors along the way who taught and developed the skills and abilities outlined in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: the ability to communicate effectively to build a great personal brand and a network of wise, trustworthy, helpful people; the ability to differentiate between ‘fact’ and ‘opinion’ and ‘bias’ and ‘non-biased’ information; the ability to innovate to create solutions to problems and/or opportunities for success; and the ability to make judgments based on empirical data (facts).

photo (previous page) - Marta with a group of young Colombians during her Diplomat internship in Bogota