She was treasurer of the Latina Women's League, as well as yearbook editor and a contributor for the school newspaper, the Knight Journal.
There she "managed a crew of 2 (including self)", "initiated and maintained soft-serve machine during the double-scoop crossover", and fulfilled "party clown duties as needed".
In the summer of 2004, she was at the weekly magazine Politics & More, collaborating on research for the July 2004 cover article on Presidential hopefuls and their wives.
[5] Next summer, she interned at Daily Dermatology Magazine; her stay at this Flatbush, Brooklyn publication focused on research for a five-part series on pores for the then upcoming Wide World of Skin convention.
She is a "yearly fundraising participant", winner of the 2004 Rotary Club Speech Contest, current coordinator of the Neighborhood Watch program for her area, a math tutor, a county chamber singer, an honorary member of the local Historical Society, and one point worked as a batgirl for the New York Mets.
[3] Despite others perceiving Betty Suarez as "geeky, unattractive, and a total goth", she does land a job at the prestigious fashion magazine Mode, where she serves as the personal assistant of Daniel Meade; the magazine's new editor-in-chief, put in place by his father (Bradford Meade) after the previous editor, Fey Sommers, was killed having her brake lines in her car cut.
[citation needed] However, Betty is not admired by fellow co-workers, who feel threatened by her presence: Wilhelmina Slater, the magazine's Creative Director, who wanted the job of editor-in-chief, her cohort Marc St. James, and magazine receptionist Amanda Tanen, are determined to sabotage Betty and Daniel at any cost, but for different reasons.
Betty finds an unlikely friend, Christina McKinney, a seamstress whose knowledge about what goes on at Mode will play a vital part in their relationship.
Betty's fashion sense, glasses, hair, her short stature, and working-class roots in Queens are often mocked by her colleagues, however Suarez manages to work towards overcoming this.
When Daniel and Alexis began feuding over the ownership of Meade Publications, Betty stepped in and played mediator and forced them to talk it out in front of their mother while in bumper cars at Coney Island.
Since she started working alongside Daniel, she has helped him with his sexual and drug addictions, repair his trust with family and improve his abilities as an Editor-In-Chief, along with getting him out of trouble, like exposing a Mother/daughter team trying to blackmail him.
As Betty told Daniel she wasn't the same person that walked into MODE and she wanted to give up her job, it would be Bradford telling her not to, first at the hospital prior to his passing and later as her subconscious.
Betty would be the one to help Claire and her murder conviction, first by making sure Alexis and Daniel would continue as owners of Meade Publications and reconcile with Bradford before his death.
Daniel and Wilhelmina can't decide which one to hire, and finally make the decision by flipping a coin, and Betty gets the promotion.
At home in Queens, Betty has to deal with her father Ignacio and sister Hilda, who feel she's been taken for a ride at her job and are concerned she's being used like a puppet because of her appearance.
Betty believes her job will help solve the legal hassles she has to deal with in trying to get an HMO provider for her father, who has a heart condition and has been told not to drink any products containing caffeine, like coffee.
But those efforts have Betty questioning the real reason why her father has avoided the doctor when it is discovered he has been using a Social Security number and name of a deceased person who, if he had lived, would've been 117 years old.
She would later learn her dad fled Mexico after he fell in love with her mother, who was married at the time to a wealthy banker abusing her while he was working for them as their chef.
Ignacio's admission could raise consequences for the family if he is deported back to Mexico and in the process could face prison time in that country.
Romantically, the unattached Betty also had to deal with her ex-boyfriend Walter Tabachnik, who dumped her but wanted back in whether she liked it or not.
Betty and Walter were once an item and her family thought he would be the person who would marry her, but he dumped her for Gina Gambarro, the Suarez's next door neighbor.
After getting hints her romance was over as evidenced by Ignacio and Claire Meade, Betty finally parted ways with Walter after he decided to take a job as the assistant manager of new Pro-Buy store in Maryland.
This plan, however, is shoved aside when the police show up at her door, telling her Hilda's fiancé, Santos, was killed in a robbery.
This development has resulted in a semi-close relationship, as Hilda and Henry has witnessed, even though Betty has yet to noticed any sparks, believing that she and Gio are just friends.
After she returns she asserts herself as "more adult" but, she is shocked to see Daniel is Editor-in-Chief of Player magazine, but after she accepted Wilhelmina's offer to work at Mode again, she realizes Daniel wanted his old job again and after she showed him letters from disgruntled readers, he reclaims his job and rehires Betty again.
Betty joins YETI so she could begin to "go places" in her career and meets a man named Matt Hartley who works for a sports magazine.
He made a deal with Helen, his therapist that he wouldn't sleep with someone until he had an emotional connection with them, which is what he thinks he has with Betty.
Meanwhile, Amanda gives Betty part of the rent she failed to pay after moving out and encourages her to take her apartment back.