Quantitative Background: Life Experiences and Career Development

This essay provides a reflective overview of the author's life, starting from a humble upbringing in the Philippines to professional experiences in the United States. It details the author's early admiration for their parents' resilience, their pursuit of education while working, and their career progression through various internet technology firms. The narrative further covers the challenges and adaptations faced, including a move to Florida to care for aging in-laws, venturing into real estate during a market downturn, and eventually settling in Virginia. The essay concludes with a poignant account of helping their late brother's family by adopting his daughters from the Philippines, highlighting themes of perseverance, family, and continuous personal and professional growth.

Quantitative background

1
Quantitative Background
I was born and brought in one of the poorest neighborhood in a small farm town about
eighty miles north of Manila where both my parents had to work from a very young age to take
care of their younger siblings. After completing the primary school and eventually got married
and always remains without having any complaints of either their job or life irrelevant of the
tough situation (Selvig, Holaday, Purkiss & Hortsch, 2015). I have always admired their
unwillingness to give up even in any worse situation. My parents had managed to send me to a
local school and gave the opportunity to study abroad and fulfill my dreams with the help of my
siblings.
My mother often used to say that education is something that one can never take away
from us irrespective of the fact we choose to use or not, which always encouraged me to have a
better life and inspired me to succeed in life. In January 1996, I got my first job in the US as a
clerk in one of the biggest internet companies of those times. I worked there for the next two
years and a year later eventually got admissions for an undergraduate course in a night class in
one of the recognized universities of US, working full time. Then I moved on to work in
different posts with different companies especially in the internet technology firm and finally got
my undergraduate degree in the summer of 2001.
I further took a job in a small network consulting firm as an office manager/ network
engineer for a few years. At the end of 2003, I worked as an executive assistant in one of the
biggest internet companies in the industry where I need not have to worry much about deadlines
and deliverables and continued my job for the next three years. As my in-laws were aging, I had
to quit my job and move to Florida with my husband so as to take good care of them. During
those times, the real estate business flexible enough in Florida that helps the families a lot to take
care of their children along with managing my new business (Salikutluk, 2016). I entered the
business during worse market conditions when hundreds of homes were abandoned, and there
was a minimal movement in the market.
As a result, the real estate business failed abruptly leading to a giant mess, but I stayed on
this business fulfilling my family's necessities and also managed to purchase few properties at a
very reasonable price and started renting them. After my in-laws died, we moved to Northern

2
Virginia and continued the real estate business, managing our real estate assets and helping my
friends and relatives to purchase and sell homes. A few years later in Virginia, I helped my late
brother's family along with my husband by filing a petition to adopt his two daughters from the
Philippines which took three long years of pain and grief to deal with the Philippine
Government.

3
References
Salikutluk, Z. (2016). Why do immigrant students aim high? Explaining the aspiration–
achievement paradox of immigrants in Germany. European Sociological Review, 32(5),
581-592.
Selvig, D., Holaday, L. W., Purkiss, J., & Hortsch, M. (2015). Correlating students' educational
background, study habits, and resource usage with learning success in medical
histology. Anatomical sciences education, 8(1), 1-11.