Embracing Change: Barbara's Journey from Environmental Engineering to Front-End Development
Barbara transitioned from environmental engineering in Brazil to front-end development in Canada, demonstrating resilience and adaptability. Her journey underscores the importance of embracing change, learning from setbacks, and the power of community support in career transitions. Barbara's story is an inspiration for those contemplating a new career path.
Barbara started her career as an environmental engineer in her home country of Brazil when after a year and a half she had the opportunity to come to Canada and continue her environmental engineering journey when the pandemic hit. Although her career took a hit as a result Barabara was grateful this gave her a chance to sit and really think about what she really wanted to do, changing paths to become a Front-End Developer.
Barbara is passionate about always challenging herself to do better as she continues her career journey, and she believes her purpose is to make meaningful changes to the lives of others. She believes it is important that people in just starting off in their journeys don’t forget it is okay to make mistakes, as they are opportunities for learning as you go forward. Barabra also encourages people to take risks and put themselves out there.
“I do feel like sometimes I don’t know what I'm doing, but I think asking for feedback really helps and talking to people who are going through the same thing as you can make you feel less alone.”
She feels her stubbornness may have hindered her in the early stages of looking for a new career. “I came from another industry so things were different. I didn’t want to change my resume, I wanted to present myself like I had before but that wasn’t working out.”
“In trying to stay the same and stand out, what I was really doing was not being noticed at all.”
After coming back to Canada Barabara noticed she lacked connections in the community and when looking for it she found CITI at an event in 2022. Barbara loved the idea of connecting with more people in the tech community and building relationships in and outside of the workforce. Not far into her CITI journey she found that it helped her develop her hard and soft skills as well as communication skills.
Barbara hopes to end up in a leadership role but for now she is content just learning and growing till she gets to a point where she knows she is ready to take on that challenge, and we here wish her the best of luck.
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