For Geovanny “Geo” Montemayor, the road to Rice University’s Master of Global Affairs program began far from the academic halls of one of the nation’s top universities.
Montemayor, the son of El Salvadoran immigrants, grew up in southwest Houston in an environment marked by drug abuse, gang violence and domestic instability. School, he said, was at the “very bottom” of his priority list.
“I thought I just wasn’t smart enough,” Montemayor recalled. “All I really knew was that I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to get out of that environment — and that’s where the Navy came in.”
Montemayor enlisted at 18, serving nearly 17 years as a Navy Seabee. His deployments took him to Afghanistan and disaster zones around the world, building roads, facilities and providing humanitarian aid. Along the way, he discovered something that would change his trajectory: he excelled in the Navy’s training schools, often finishing at the top of his class.
“That helped me see I could excel in education,” he said. “It gave me the confidence to pursue my degree.”
After earning his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, Montemayor set his sights on graduate school. He applied to Rice “on a whim,” never expecting to be admitted. The acceptance email arrived while he was interviewing for another program.
“I was just overwhelmed,” Montemayor said. “Something I never saw possible in my life, going to a graduate program at a prestigious university like Rice.”
Now preparing to return to Houston for the first time in nearly two decades, Montemayor will begin his studies in Rice’s Master of Global Affairs program this fall, with the goal of pursuing a career in diplomacy.
“It’s just an incredible journey, and I’m so grateful for it,” he said. “From where I started to where I am now, it still feels unreal.”