We sat down with one of our students, Thays Ribeiro, to share more about her journey into a tech job. We want to give you an idea of the depth and breadth of who is in our learning community. This interview is a part of ongoing learner interviews of our Qwasar students.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you are from, what's your educational background?
I am originally from Florianopolis, an island in the south of Brazil but have been in the U.S. since March 2020. My background is in healthcare, I worked as a dentist and orthodontist for 7 years. I reached a point in my life where I was no longer happy with my profession and thought about other options. When I had an opportunity to move to the United States, I decided it was time for a career transition.
What are you passionate about?
I really enjoy traveling, especially in areas with lots of nature and hiking. I think what I enjoy most about the U.S. is the national parks and try to visit them whenever I have a chance. One of my favorite national parks is Yellowstone. I also really enjoy coding and staying connected with my family and friends.
Tell us a little bit about your journey to Qwasar
Before I moved to the U.S. I was already thinking about what I could do professionally. The process to validate my dentistry certificate was costly and it wasn’t a huge passion of mine anymore. I found out about 42 Silicon Valley at that time and they were promoting the Piscine which was a one-month intensive bootcamp in C. The prerequisites stated that I didn’t need to have any background in coding which was perfect since I had an interest in technology, computers, and wanted to learn more and discover if I had a passion for it.
I started the Piscine in January 2020 and I had no idea how to even open a terminal and was really lost in terms of coding. There were so many participants in this program and I found a group of Brazilians that were doing the Piscine as well. They helped me through the process since they had a background in computer science. It was very intensive and fast-paced which caused me to get a little lost and not have time to dive in more and fully understand the concepts.
After the Piscine finished, I started at 42 school which was a free school at the time and I was really excited to progress further in computer programming. I went back to Brazil to organize myself and returned to the United States just as COVID started. At this time, 42 school closed and I spent a few months thinking about my next steps. 42 still didn’t give us online access to the school, so I was at a crossroads. I spent some time reading to help me find my path and what I wanted to pursue professionally.
I heard that Qwasar was opening and I joined in September. I really appreciated the level of support that Qwasar offered in comparison to 42. In Qwasar, I went through all the tracks and certainly realized how difficult it is to change careers. After a year and four months I began interviewing for positions which led me to my current job.
What is it like to learn at Qwasar?
Even though I did the Piscine which focused on C, I still didn't have a really good base/foundation to do things by myself. When I started directly on Qwasar’s bootcamp C, I was trying to learn everything and be able to do it by myself without seeking assistance from others. I wanted to be able to truly code in depth on my own, which was difficult in the beginning. I spent a lot of time comparing myself to others, thinking everyone else was going so fast and I was falling behind. It took me four months to finish that bootcamp and I think it was worth it because it made me build a foundation for the next steps.
The first projects after bootcamp C were projects in C as well. They were very complex and I spent a lot of time doubting my abilities. With the support and encouragement from Gaëtan (Qwasar's CTO) to keep going, I didn’t give up. I showed up each day of the week in morning standup and shared my struggles with the full time cohort. This gave me an outlet to keep pushing and working hard at increasing my skills and getting better at coding.
Tell us a little bit about any struggles you have had and how you have overcome them.
Most of the struggles stemmed from the lack of confidence I had in myself. At one point in my Qwasar journey, I was invited to be a guardian and mentor to other students. This changed my whole mindset and allowed me to realize that I was capable and could provide help to others. I started to believe in myself and my abilities and saw how much I have learned on my journey and how far I had progressed. My performance on projects started to increase and within a few months I gained an incredible amount of confidence.
What have you learned about yourself while at Qwasar?
I have learned that I am really resilient since I didn’t give up when times were tough, even when I thought I was going to. I have learned to be disciplined in many ways which is required to be part of an online school. You need to dedicate time and plan in advance for remote education. I believe that you really need to become self-motivated towards your goals and not give up. I also learned how capable I am of learning and understanding new concepts, which I never realized before.
What has been your favorite project so far at Qwasar?
I think I can answer this question with two projects: One that I learned the most and the one that I had more fun with. The one I struggled with and learned the most from was myLS, which took 3-4 months to accomplish. It was full of struggles until I understood the main concepts. Gaetan didn't give up on me and provided full support. Little by little, I could understand the things I was working on and ultimately was able to pass it. After I passed through myLS, I changed to the Full Stack track and progressed really quickly with the knowledge that I gained from myLS.
The project that I had the most fun with was Mastermind. With this project, I felt confident in my solution and code independently. This was the first project that I coded completely on my own. These two projects were very important for me during my Qwasar journey.
Tell us about one of your biggest successes while learning to code.
One of my biggest successes was learning not to compare my coding journey with others. I had to realize that everyone had a different background and experience and my journey, experience, background is completely different from everyone else I met in my cohort. I learned skills in my past career outside of coding such as communication and working with clients that are part of my strength points, whereas other students have different strength points. I learned that there is no deadline for success and something this important takes time.
What are some of the recent projects you have worked on in your job?
Before I accepted my current position I completed the Claris track within Qwasar which introduced me to my current employer. At the completion of the Claris program I interviewed with multiple companies and received two job offers. I chose Beezwax Datatools which is a consulting company that designs custom software for different business needs. I am able to work on many different types of projects, mainly with FileMaker and Tableau. Currently I am working on projects related to the finances of one of the largest companies in Silicon Valley. It is extremely exciting and rewarding to be even a small part in these projects.
What encouragement would you have for others starting out their coding journeys and careers?
I wrote five bullet points that I think are very important and interesting in my learning journey process:
- Don’t be afraid to make a career transition if you are unhappy where you are working. You need to be brave. It will be challenging but even more rewarding when you find something you are passionate about. I wasn't happy and this was the best thing that happened to me.
- Don’t give up and keep pushing, like Gaetan always says. Don’t compare your journey with anybody’s journey along the way.
- To code, you need to be resilient. Code everyday and don’t give up.
- Don’t copy other people’s code while you are starting out. I think it’s very important to understand the basics and build a foundation before you move on to a more advanced subject. If you are copying code and think you are understanding but you are not able to code by yourself, it's a problem when you go to the bigger projects because then you will be completely lost. I think it's worth it to spend more time in the beginning and learn how to do the basics before you move on to more advanced projects.
- C is a good language and you won’t regret learning it. It builds a foundation to learn many other languages. I am really grateful I had this opportunity to learn C. It helped me realize I am capable of learning anything.
Anything else to add?
As a Latina woman, I am really grateful to be a part of the Qwasar community. I admire the work of everybody on the team. The world needs more diversity in the programming market as well as accessible education. I am really proud of Qwasar and extremely grateful because it changed my life and changed my journey through this career transition. Without Qwasar and their perseverance and all their support, I would have given up in the beginning. Thank you Qwasar a lot.
We are thankful for Thays's time in developing this interview and sharing her insights and journey. We are looking forward to sharing more student interviews in the upcoming months.
