If you don’t already know what you want to do right out of high school, you may want to consider exhausting your free resources and having experiences before dropping thousands of dollars on college. Patricia Shirazi went to college in Brazil, but when she came to America, it was a whole new ballgame.  Patricia grew up in a poor family. In fact, she was the first person in her family to graduate high school. She got her degree in Math and became a teacher. After meeting her husband however, she knew she wanted more. They moved to America and because she wasn’t able to use her degree without paying for a costly license, she shifted her focus. She began studying coding languages and became a software engineer.  She is very logical and truly believes that we should exhaust our free resources before paying for anything. If you are interested in learning something new, learn all that you can from what you have and if you still have knowledge gaps, then you invest.  Listen in to hear all about her story and why she’s still excited to be learning and growing in her career.   Links and Resources: Connect with Patricia: LinkedIn | TikTok Connect with Siobhan:  Industry ExplorersIndustry Explorers Facebook GroupIndustry Explorers on FacebookIndustry Explorers on InstagramIndustry Explorers on YouTubeIndustry Explorers on TikTokBook a Connection Call Love the show and want to help support us? Donate to our Ko-Fi Account. We love providing you with these stories, tips, and recommendations, but it takes a lot of time and resources. Keep the podcast going and donate today!   In this episode: [00:37] Welcome to the show Patricia! [00:47] She shares her background in Brazil. [04:04] She talks about being a math teacher when she graduated college. [06:07] Listen as Patricia discusses having imposter syndrome with her jobs. [09:25] She loved teaching math and saw herself doing that as a career. [10:27] When she moved to the US, she had to make a choice about her career and went to a coding bootcamp. [11:51] “I think going to college gives you a great life experience and you learn how to learn.” [13:48] She shares some advice for anyone not wanting to go to college but still be a good learner. [16:24] Javascript is the most used language in coding. [17:46] She discusses the similarities between learning a new language versus learning a coding language. [20:01] She talks about her husband and the business they started together. [22:58] She doesn’t feel the same fulfillment in her current job as she did as a teacher in Brazil. [25:47] Listen as Patricia talks about the coding bootcamp experience. [28:48] If you don’t know what you want to do, exhaust the available free resources before you go to college and get into debt. [31:54] She discusses the job she got at Google. [33:00] To get a job as a software engineer, you need to invest in your presence on LinkedIn with something that makes your profile stand out. [35:41] Patricia shares how she created her portfolio. [38:26] She talks about why she wanted to be a software engineer versus her QA job with Google. [42:19] She is now a software engineer with Olive. [44:06] She speaks about the culture of the company. [47:18] Patricia discusses how to get the best work out of her. [49:13] Thank you for being on the show!