The Climb
Definitive career goals are daunting and have never come easy to me.
As a kid, I never seemed to be able to imagine myself doing anything with the passion that others seemed to have. I had interests and the idea of different careers seemed interesting but the drive to follow through scared me because I notoriously like to change my mind. It didn’t have much impact on me as a child, because when you’re young, those decisions don’t hold much weight in your life. As a teenager, the weight begins to increase because it seems like everyone expects you to have it figured out and the responsibility becomes real. As an adult it becomes even heavier. Now, the decisions affect things like your income, your living circumstances, your ability to join friends and peers in activities and so much more.
When I graduated high school I took the easy way out from deciding and while friends were leaving for university or college, I stayed and did another year of high school to give myself time to figure everything out. It came time to apply to post secondary schools because I felt like that was the only option and what others deemed appropriate. I completed one year of Psychology. It was a general field that I could study and again, keep deciding what I wanted to do.
I decided it was time to come to a conclusion and I transferred to a new institution and completed a year of Pre-Health Sciences. I was on track to have the courses and grades appropriate to be accepted into a Nursing program. However, being *notoriously* indecisive, I decided it wasn’t the path for me. I was coming into my early 20’s at this point and wanted to do something that sparked my interests and not what I thought was appropriate or traditional. I then started ..wait for it.. hair school! It was something creative and completely different from the traditional education I was used to. I moved to Toronto and jumped right into it. It seemed exciting and new but it didn’t feel right. I soon left and decided to take a big break on thinking I needed to have it all figured out.
During all this time, I had been working in jewellery retail and had many successes. I worked with a great team and an even better manager who had become an inspiration and a mentor. I decided to stick to what I knew would support me living on my own for the first time and something that I had skills in already that I could develop further. For the next few years I stayed in retail and again, had more successes but I wasn’t being fulfilled. I always reflected on my skills and interests and tried to find links to a career that would be exciting, fulfilling and keep my attention.
Growing up I had always been attached to a computer. Whether it was one of the many desktops I destroyed or the coveted MacBook Pro I begged my parents for after high school. I was constantly on social media pages updating themes, curating my Tumblr to absolute teen perfection, making my own GIFs, photoshopping anything I could think of, taking apart and putting back together my computer to fix it and staying up late every night while my computer’s fan buzzed in the background.
One day it clicked! My biggest interest had always been right in front of me. I never thought that a career in tech was a possibility for me. It was never really discussed as an option growing up and I was stuck in such a traditional mindset.
I took Juno College’s Intro to Web Development course and it felt like the stars aligned. I was doing something so organic to who I was. I was creating content that was interesting to me, in my control and it had a purpose. I was spending hours in another world that felt like five minutes had gone by. I immediately applied to Juno’s Immersive Bootcamp and I didn’t get in. I wasn’t phased in the slightest. I knew I could do it and that drive that I saw in others growing up was now in me. I tried again, and I was in! I’m doing something I love now. I have goals that are growing and evolving every day and I can see glimpses of my future in my mind from time to time. There is room to build on my own design interests as well as the technical skills necessary. Maybe my indecisiveness is inevitable and who I am, but it led me to something I love and something that I can channel my experiences into that can help myself and others.
As Hannah Montana once said, “Life’s a climb, but the view is great”.