Lorena Ortiz Cabrero, junior lecturer at FASoS, is originally from Madrid. While she is now teaching in the field of politics and history, before coming to Maastricht, Lorena studied medicine.
Why this change of heart?
“When I was growing up, I was a very active child and did all sorts of dancing, from ballet to sevillanas (in the picture), until I landed on gymnastics. My team and I were pretty ‘okay’, not the best, but we did get to participate in regional competitions. I was specialised in the hula-hoop and started to do gymnastics semi-professionally. It was a lot of fun but also very demanding, and I was certain I wanted to go to medical school, which meant I would have to study a lot to get a high GPA. I started focusing on my studies, and found more compatible hobbies such as judo and choir – also fun, but not as much as gymnastics!”
Lorena had also always been interested in history, languages, and politics, but she thought she could study these topics in her own time. “Unfortunately, medical school proved very time-consuming and a rather toxic environment. I was constantly at the university, studying. And Madrid is not like Maastricht where you bike for 15 minutes from university to your house. My commute was 1.5 hours each way. I basically had no time for family and friends, let alone for the topics I loved – history, politics and languages.”
After two years, Lorena decided to quit medical school and focus on the things she loved. “The hardest part really was to accept for myself that everything was going to be just fine. I was lucky that I suffered no external judgment and my family and friends were very supportive in my decision. As I was looking for studies in the social sciences, my partner told me about Maastricht. To be honest, I had never even heard of the place before, but I was really drawn to the Problem-Based Learning system and so I enrolled at UCM. After my BA, I went to FASoS to study the Research Master in European Studies and I stayed here to teach.”
UCM vs FASoS…, which is better according to Lorena, in this classic UM faculties feud? She winks and says “FASoS, of course!”
