War and afterwards he would never leave his village of La Pobla de Segur. After completing primary education, the remote location of his village led Josep Borrell to be home-schooled with aid from his mother and a retired teacher, taking the official Baccalaureate exams at the Lleida high school. He continued his higher education thanks to several scholarships, including from the March Foundation and the Fulbright Program. In 1964 he moved to Barcelona to study industrial engineering, but left after a year in 1965 to study aeronautical engineering at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), graduating in 1969. In the summer of 1969 Borrell worked as volunteer at the Gal On kibbutz in Israel, where he met his future French wife Caroline Mayeur, from whom he is now divorced. During this time he also began to study a bachelor's degree and later a PhD in economics at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). Borrell also holds a master's degree in applied mathematics (operations research) from Stanford University in Palo Alto (California, US), and a postgraduate in energy economics from the French Institute of Petroleum in Paris (France). In May 1976 Borrell defended his PhD thesis in economics at the UCM. From 1972 to 1982 he lectured in mathematics at the Higher Technical School of Aeronautical Engineering of the UPM. In 1982 he was appointed associate professor of Business Mathematics at the University of Valladolid. From 1975 to 1982 he also worked for Cepsa, employed at the company's Department of Systems and Information Engineering; he combined this activity with the teaching of university classes and involvement in local politics. Political career Involvement in local politics Borrell joined the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in 1975 and started his political activity during Spain's transition to democracy in the Socialist Grouping of Madrid along with Luis Solana and Luis Carlos Croissier. He ran for office as the number 5 in the PSOE list for the 1979 municipal election in Majadahonda, becoming city councillor. Borrell also became a member of the 1979–1983 corporation of the Provincial Deputation of Madrid and managed the Financial Department of the provincial government body in the pre-autonomic period. Role during the González's governments In the 1982 general election the PSOE won a landslide victory, returning the socialists to power for the first time since the years of the Second Republic. Under Prime Minister Felipe González, Borrell was appointed to