Paula Fernández
I’m a fourth-year student in the Bachelor in Behavior & Social Sciences. I’m from Spain and have lived in various cities around the country, and spent a semester in the UK in Leeds. I’m very interested in understanding human behavior deeply—exploring the factors which influence it and the social and cognitive psychology behind it. Outside the classroom, I enjoy going to the gym, painting and meeting up with friends. I really enjoy and appreciate the simple things in life like having a coffee in the sunshine, deep conversations or dinner at a good restaurant with the people closest to me.
"I would definitely choose IE University over and over again. During these four years, I feel I have grown professionally and personally, and met wonderful people and cultures that otherwise I would never have done."
Going her own way
Paula’s choice of university was pretty straightforward: IE University is the only institution in Spain which offered her the chance to study behavioral and social science.
Having discovered our Bachelor in Behavior & Social Science, however, she certainly hasn’t found that lack of choice limiting. In fact, she describes it as a very comprehensive program, saying she’s “learning about many different disciplines and always applying it to the real world.”
Indeed, it seems that even if there were other options available to her, given the same choice again, Paula would choose IE University every time. She says her experience has been “amazing,” and that she has grown both professionally and personally over her four years of study. The chance to meet people from so many different cultures is something she likely would not have had elsewhere.
Paula’s interest in her subject has gone far beyond the classroom. She has been part of the Behavioral Economics Club for around 18 months, having spent a year in charge of its marketing activities. She’s particularly proud of the club’s BE Week, which saw speakers from around the world come to share their insights, with a behavioral competition rounding off the event. She’s added another string to her bow more recently by switching to advising new marketing coordinators, partly due to her workload.
These experiences have been part of the overall culture at IE University that has helped Paula develop the soft skills she says are essential in professional life. Personal interactions, creative problem-solving and managing complex situations are all crucial skills in her opinion, and at IE University Paula has ample opportunities to apply these concepts in practice.
According to Paula, the competition is aimed at those young professionals who lack experience in data science or programming, but want to kick-start their journey in the field. These students can then add the experience to their CVs and network with some outstanding professionals in the field.
So what does the future hold for Paula? While she’s currently looking for a summer internship that relates to behavioral science before she starts job-hunting, she says that she’s very flexible. If she finds an interesting job in another field that offers her a good experience, she won’t reject it. Ideally that job would be abroad, so Paula is currently looking for positions outside of Spain.
Asked to sum up her attitude towards life, Paula quotes the saying “live and let live.” She chooses not to compare herself to others, or judge or comment on other people’s lives. Paula believes in living life her way, while respecting everybody else’s ways. That’s probably why she’s fit in so well during her four years at IE University.
