We recently connected with Ana Raquel Aquino and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ana Raquel, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I have always had a passion for education and human rights. That’s why I became a lawyer. I have a special love for exploration, curiosity, and the world, including its cultures, which leads me to a deep admiration for learning and, in turn, to travel. I merged both worlds by studying abroad and wanting to continue exploring job opportunities and professional experiences outside my country. This is how “Cósmica Consulting” was born in 2020 so as my Instagram account (ana.cosmica), a consultancy that assists students, particularly Latin Americans, in studying abroad by promoting educational programs at all levels. My entrepreneurship arose from a need I had when I didn’t know which scholarships or programs to apply for; it arose from my existential crisis of not knowing what to do with my life before and after university; it arose from my confusion about whether or not to pursue a career in law.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Being a human rights lawyer with several specializations and postgraduate degrees has helped me understand the academic world. I have worked in 2 universities, 3 NGOs and the Guatemalan government. I know firsthand what it is like to apply for scholarships and educational programs since I have won more than 7 scholarships along my student journey. The idea of entrepreneurship was born from wanting to help my contacts to apply abroad because they did not know very well how to do it. I realized, as the community grew, that the problem was not only the lack of understanding of forms but also the lack of knowledge and dissemination of opportunities abroad; what types of educational funding exist; what they want to study the program for and the academic level they are looking for. It is not as simple as choosing from a catalog, the decision is much deeper and has to do with vocation. I am motivated to help more people decide their path, to spread the word about how they can access free public and private education. I love being able to encourage more women to travel alone and to trust in themselves.

My business has grown significantly since 2019 when I was a fully-funded student in Spain. I started my Instagram channel to help with scholarship application tips and realized that the problem was much bigger than that. The problem was not just the lack of understanding of forms and procedures, but also the lack of knowledge and dissemination of opportunities abroad. So I started posting more and more digital content and people started asking me if I offered consultations, so I grew organically until I reached over 100,000 followers on Instagram and the business is full of appointments for consultations.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I believe that social media is a great communication channel. In my opinion, there are three fundamental things required to grow on social media: 1. Knowing your audience and what you want to communicate to them; 2. Being consistent, and 3. Providing quality information.

However, the issue with social media is that it’s not enough for an enterprise or business. You have to scale it to other platforms such as a website, direct contact via email or some chat application, a CRM, a booking application, etc. Without this support, it becomes a kind of newspaper or magazine where you give information or place services without any kind of systematization. This can be complicated for both the student/applicant (in my case) and for myself, the one who attends and directs.

Communication is an art. You have to capture attention in a few seconds, provide quality information with attractive visuals, and above all, get people to interact. I see it as a challenge, like a Nintendo game that I have to “win” or reach more people to achieve my goal.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The example speaks for itself. I keep myself updated with information by reading about educational topics, communication, and activism for human rights. I love the question: How can we make human rights accessible to everyone? How can we communicate them in an interesting way without distorting the information?

The educational topic is complex because you don’t necessarily have to say that you’re advocating for and defending the right to education to do so. For me, access to education begins with the student knowing how to access it; knowing what they want to study, where, for how long, for what purpose, and ensuring their professional goals align with their personal ones.

It’s complex to convey all this, but I try to lead by example. I love studying, reading, traveling, and I continue to do so. It’s work I do on myself so that I can give to others and learn. I can’t proclaim something that I don’t believe in or don’t do. The example speaks louder than what I can publish.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.anacosmica.com
• Instagram: ana.cosmica
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ana-raquel-aquino-smith
• Twitter: ana_cosmica
• Other: Email: anaraquel.aquino@gmail.com

Image Credits
I have all the rights for the photos.