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Stephanie Opala
Stephanie Opala

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Nevertheless, Steph Coded in 2021! πŸ‘©β€πŸ’»

How it started πŸ‘©β€πŸ’»

If on this day last year, someone told me that I would have accomplished this much into my journey in tech, I would not have believed them. After my graduation in 2019, I worked in the marketing field but I had always wanted to get into tech. Therefore, in September 2020 after doing my research on careers in the tech industry and how to get started, I enrolled to a bootcamp, Introduction to Web Development by Code First Girls. The bootcamp lasted 8 weeks and thereafter, I decided to continue learning as a self-taught developer. Here I am 7 months later!

My most recent achievementπŸ† was...

Learning and building mini projects in JavaScript. I've been struggling with JavaScript since it's my first programming language but I'm proud that I've tackled that, and built mini-projects.

Advocating for myself looks like…

Self-affirmations 😊
Taking breaks when necessary.
Reminding myself that an expert in their field was once a beginner.

My biggest goal is…

Grow career-wise and support other women transitioning into the tech industry and even those in the industry. The first few months can be tough. I am thankful to all the women that continued to encourage me to get going. There were days especially as a self-taught developer, where I felt so demotivated and wasn't sure if I'd get to achieve what I had set out to do, but watching or listening to other women's stories about how they got to navigate similar obstacles really motivated me.

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

Give them a chance.

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