Almost two years ago, I was enjoying the best moments of my life. I was working for a major tech company with an amazing culture, awesome employee benefits and lots of opportunities to grow. Although I was in a foreign land I did not feel alone since I have my partner with me and supportive friends.

Then out of blue, COVID hit and became a disease that crippled the world. My partner and I just returned from our two-week vacation in Europe. We had a rewarding time exploring sights and attractions but then upon our return, we were forced to deal with a situation that changed our lives.

He lost his job and needed to return to our home country. A huge uncertainty is looming at our heads and we were scared. The company I am working with started to restructure. Unfortunately, my role was affected and I was given the option to compete with others for a newly created role, be assigned to another job or leave.

We decided to face our fears and plan for our future. That future involves learning how to become an application designer and developer. I get to study and my partner gets to work in another foreign land. We thought it was a perfect plan.

With a heavy heart, I left my beloved job, said our tearful goodbyes to our families and moved to Ottawa to start a new life. Living here needed a ton of adjustments. We needed to get used to the weather, prices of commodities and transportation. We were shocked at first at how the city lags behind other major cities in terms of transportation services.

School started and I was extremely excited to learn everything. My courses were heavy in design and programming. I studied a bunch of design techniques and learned at least six programming languages. Every time we have a major academic deliverable I can't help but feel overwhelmed. Of course, I gave my hundred per cent best and managed to get grades that I am proud of.

But then a professor in one of my courses said that employers will not be looking at our grades. Huh? I thought about that comment for a while and I can't seem to understand why I can't leverage my grades to land a job. Does this mean that all the effort and plenty of sleepless nights just to make sure that my assignments were perfect will be for nought? I can't believe it. I just can't.

As if sensing that our minds are troubled by his comment, my professor further explained that it is also important to show employers our skills through works we created or are involved in. Furthermore, he said that we need to go out of our comfort zones and build connections. Ah, ok, that makes some sense. My grades are just one aspect of me as a job hunter, I need to become an ideal candidate by complementing my grades. Ok, that is doable!

In our first class in the current semester with the same professor, he introduced us to Aderson, a successful developer who is also a professor and a podcaster. He touch on ideas similar to what my professor said, expounded on them and gave plenty of examples.

I noted that as a budding developer, I have hurdles that I need to overcome to land a job. The challenges include the lack of experience, few projects, and a small number of professional connections in the field.

Luckily, there are steps I can take to lessen the blow of this newbie phase. Aderson suggests creating content whether it is a small project in GitHub or a collaboration with other programmers or starting a blog and sharing things we learned as a developer. Overcome the lack of confidence through continuous practice. Increase our portfolio through contributions to open-source projects and lastly, reach out to the people in my field to build strong connections. Aderson shared real-world insights which I truly appreciate and can apply as early as now to become a competent and marketable candidate.

So now, creating this blog is one of the many first steps I will take to become a better developer and succeed. My life changed dramatically over the last two years. I went out of my comfort zone, learning to become an application designer and developer and ultimately planting my feet permanently in this new city.