Hugo Pérez de Albéniz Illana
I was born in Spain to Spanish parents, but we moved around a lot while I was growing up. I lived in Dubai for a period of time, and I finished high school in Singapore. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study, so I took a gap year. During that time I enrolled in a data science bootcamp and quickly learned that math was my thing. When I’m not studying, I love to play sports, read and hang out with my friends. I’m also training for the Lisbon Half Marathon in the spring.
"IE University offers a lot of flexibility. If you want to study a lot, there’s more than enough content to exhaust anyone. If you’d rather focus on starting a business, there’s also time for that."
Hugo Pérez de Albéniz Illana was born in Spain but has lived in Dubai and Singapore. After high school, he took a gap year because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to study. However, his gap year wasn’t to travel and explore; he instead enrolled in a data science bootcamp and carried out a six-month internship shortly after.
The data science bootcamp exposed Hugo to all the different tools and fields of study currently in use—like machine learning and deep learning—and their applications. He also grazed the surface of the super complex mathematics that are involved in those fields. Once his bootcamp was finished, he went on to work as an intern in the quant department of a bank. There he started reading financial mathematics textbooks which he found interesting, but just slightly too advanced for his level of math. This was when it all clicked.
Hugo needed to understand the pages of those mathematics textbooks. He was passionate about learning the complex things that are shaping the world in which he’s living. This passion drove him to the Bachelor in Applied Mathematics at IE University. “The program has the perfect combination of mathematics and data science to achieve a thorough, yet practical, understanding of the topics I found so fascinating.”
The program was everything Hugo was looking for and more. He has particularly enjoyed Linear Algebra and Geometry, noting that the two subjects go hand in hand. “Most of what we learned in Linear Algebra we would later see repeated from a completely different field, and perspective, in Geometry,” he explains. Hugo went on to share that they were complex but practical courses, which have built a solid foundation for what’s to come going forward in the program.
Hugo is surely enjoying a mix of it all. He’s a member of the IE University basketball team in Segovia, the IE Model UN Debate Club, the chess club, hiking club and book club. What’s more, he’s setting up a running and calisthenics club as training motivation for the half marathon he’s running in the spring. If that wasn’t enough, Hugo is taking a sewing class that a friend of his is organizing with the fashion club.
As for advice for future Bachelor in Applied Mathematics students, Hugo would remind them to come ready to learn. “It’s not easy but will be incredibly rewarding—if you’re into math, that is.” We look forward to where the program continues to take Hugo.