Choosing academia: an outsider's perspective

Choosing academia as a career path is a luxury and privilege of the few. The place where you are born and the citizenship you hold can determine whether an academic career is possible as a life goal. Here, I will detail my own personal experiences and explain how I arrived to geosciences and seismology as a woman of color from a developing country (Nicaragua). These experiences have been shaped by me living in Mexico, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as by key personal choices and important mentors that have taken me from an industry job as an engineer to a postdoc.