Jeanette grew up the child of immigrants in Los Angeles – the first in her family to go to school in the United States. She’s always wanted to have a successful career, but didn’t know what kind of work she’d feel good doing. She was looking for jobs she’d care about, and not finding them.
“I was kind of exploring everything because so many of the professional careers I considered were not of interest to me. It was never ‘hey, I want to do this specifically so I tried to explore different avenues and I ended up in business because that seemed like a good general field.”
She found herself working in sales, which wasn’t a bad job but she quickly learned wasn’t for her. “I felt like I was kind of at a dead end in my career, which was funny because I had just started,” Jeanette said. “So I decided to look again, pivoting to find something that I could be passionate about.”
The problem: Pivoting would mean getting new skills, maybe even going back to school. How could she do that?
“That’s when I found Calbright, and Calbright was the motivation I needed to be able to pivot into a different industry,” she said. She enrolled in Calbright’s Data Analysis program, and started to feel passionate about the career opportunities in front of her.
Working with faculty and career services, Jeanette has found a new job in Data Analysis at a major company. But she’s still spending time at Calbright too.
“Honestly, I think it’s a sense of community,” she said. “The connections I’ve made from being a student and then an intern and then being involved in some of the events here have made it so that I want to stay involved. This is kind of like my little family remotely that helped me pivot. So I feel like I almost have a duty to give back and stay connected.”
Read her full story here.
