The Thesis
From my first week attending college, in la Universidad de Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, I
wondered what my thesis will be about. In Venezuela, undergraduate studies need to be
concluded with a thesis, normally referred to as la Tesis de Grado. I couldn’t wait to get to that
moment, where all my abilities and researching skills would meet to create something new to
solve a problem. While my friends were dreaming about graduation day, I was dreaming of my
thesis defense day. I just never imagined it would change everything inside me.
Months after finishing all the classes, I became an intern for a department in Petróleos de
Venezuela, Sociedad Anónima (PDVSA), a state-owned petroleum company. The thesis topic was
the design of a plant that cleans used oil that had been discarded from industrial gas compressors,
and I was assigned to work in a facility that had more than a dozen of those devices. It was
