Cintia loved her life in Silver Lake, but she had been working in restaurants all over Los Angeles for over 10 years. It was time for a change.
“I really, really, really wanted to get out of the restaurant industry because you’re always on your feet and you’re working weekends and it’s just a lot,” she said. “Working in hospitality kept me afloat, but I was working 24/7, teaching yoga on the side, and making about $50,000 a year. It was enough to be okay for a while, but I needed a more regular schedule and to increase my income.”
She enrolled in a 5-month data analytics boot camp and loved working with data – but she felt like she needed more time to process what she was learning, more practice, and to build confidence.
“Boot camps are very intense, it was like a five day per week type thing, and I was working at a restaurant, doing a lot of things, I didn’t really have the capacity to go through the program that quickly,” Cintia said. A fellow boot camp student she admired had just enrolled in Calbright, and told Cintia about it. “And when I heard about it, I said ‘oh, that sounds perfect for me! I can take my time!’”
Calbright’s Data Analysis program was what Cintia was looking for to advance her job skills and goals. “Calbright reinforced some concepts that I had not fully understood previously. It gave me the opportunity to practice. Through the internship I got at Calbright, I’ve had countless opportunities to apply what I had learned and to collaborate with others. Cleaning data, analyzing it, visualizing it, and presenting my insights to the Calbright research team was crucial to my becoming a more well-rounded analyst. And I could do it all on my schedule, and it didn’t cost me anything.”
But the most important thing “was being able to see a counselor, to get help and advice about my studies and my career whenever I wanted to,” Cintia said. “This college really cares about supporting students and building a community, and giving opportunities to people who haven’t had them. ”
After completing her program, she began her job search again – and with Calbright’s support, moved into a new job in a whole new industry. She’s now a Customer Relationship Management Coordinator for a hospitality company that focuses on digital marketing to reach its clients.
Read Cintia’s full story here.
