In a world of sharks, you have to learn how to swim. That's how I gained my first experience.

When I first started thinking about entering the IT industry, I felt as though I was starting from a place far behind everyone else's starting line. I had no experience that I could put on my résumé, nor any experience that was in any way related to data analytics. No work examples. No proof that I could do anything more than learn. I knew that if I wanted an opportunity, I would have to create it for myself.

That's why I decided to build experience from scratch through volunteering, personal projects, and a portfolio that would speak for me before anyone even invited me to an interview. It was my path, my way of moving even one step closer to the world I wanted to enter. And it was that decision that became the beginning of a story I couldn't have imagined at the time.

When I started looking for volunteer opportunities, I felt like someone standing in front of a row of closed doors, knocking on each one in turn and hoping that one of them would eventually open. Days passed, then weeks, and I still wasn't getting any responses. I sent applications everywhere there was even the slightest chance that someone might need a data analyst, even a beginner. Every time I refreshed my inbox, it ended the same way. Silence. And I genuinely wanted to gain experience, to feel that I was doing something real, something meaningful, something that would leave a mark.

One day, during a course I was taking, a dataset about shark attacks appeared. I usually didn't work with practice datasets because they lacked life, real context, that spark that makes analysis become a story. But this dataset was different. Raw, chaotic, full of details that seemed to be asking to be organized. I started putting together a plan for a project that could have two stages and show something more than an ordinary analysis.

While looking for visual inspiration for a shark-themed dashboard, I was browsing Google without much of a goal when I suddenly came across the Global Shark Attack File website. I went there out of curiosity and left with the feeling that I had just found something I had been looking for for a month, even though I had no idea it would look like this. On the website, there was a link to download real data on shark incidents. Real data. Not a simulation. Not an exercise. The kind of data that someone had been collecting for years, with care, with a mission, and with a sense of responsibility.

I felt excited because I suddenly saw a real opportunity for a volunteer position in it. A first project that could be something more than a course assignment. However, I knew that if I wanted to try, the first step had to come from me. I had to propose the collaboration. To knock on the door and wait for someone to open it.

And that was the hardest part. That moment when you have to gather the courage to write a message to a complete stranger, to an organization you've never worked with before, and do it in English, proposing a volunteer collaboration. I knew what I should do, but the awareness that I had to be the one to take the initiative made my heart race.

Despite that, I sat down and wrote the email. I introduced myself, described my career-change journey, my project idea, and the fact that I could prepare a dashboard and documentation as part of a volunteer collaboration. And when I pressed "Send," my hands were shaking like jelly.

I sent the message and waited. One day passed. Then a second. Then a third. Silence. I thought that, once again, nothing would come of it, but something inside me wouldn't let me give up. I wrote again, this time to a different email address, with the same message. And only after a few more days did a reply arrive. A positive one. That's how my first real volunteer collaboration began.

The director of GSAF lived in Australia, so we worked in completely different time zones. When I was starting my day, he was finishing his. When I was asleep, he was reviewing my revisions. There was something surreal about it, but also incredibly motivating. For two intense weeks, I prepared the data, cleaned it, analyzed it, and built the dashboard. Then came another week of revisions, this time involving a GSAF investigator from the same time zone. We worked on the details, refined the categories, and checked for consistency. I felt that I was doing something real, something important, something meaningful.

The project turned out to be a great success. I didn't expect that, because I started it with trembling hands and the feeling that perhaps I was doing something too ambitious for someone who was only just entering the world of data analytics. And yet, it was that courage that made everything turn out differently than I had expected. I gained a great deal of recognition, and I still keep in touch with the GSAF team to this day. At one point, I was even offered the opportunity to become one of the investigators. If it weren't for the fact that I know about as much about shark attacks as the average person, and that technology is what truly attracts me, I probably would have accepted. To this day, I smile at the thought that someone saw me in that role at all.

Maybe in a year we'll work together again to refresh the data. Or maybe one of you will do it, someone who, just like me, will be looking for their first opportunity. You never know where a single click, a single inquiry, or a single brave decision might lead.

This project taught me something that can't be learned from any textbook. That courage really can open doors we didn't even know existed. That sometimes all it takes is taking one more step, sending one more email, trying one more time, even when all there was before was silence. Thanks to this project, I gained a confidence I didn't have before. I received a letter of recommendation that became a symbol for me that I am capable. I gained a project that wasn't an exercise, but a real collaboration with a real organization. Its presence on my résumé and in my portfolio, as an international collaboration, helped me greatly in getting my first job.

When I look back on all of this, I can see that it wasn't a coincidence. It was the result of small, courageous decisions that I made despite my fear. And I think that's the most beautiful part of this story.

Sometimes we can feel that we're not good enough, too weak, or too inexperienced to take that first step. We stand at the edge, looking at deep water, convinced that if we jump, we'll drown. And then that moment comes when we find the courage to do it anyway, and suddenly it turns out that instead of drowning, we begin to swim. Maybe uncertainly, maybe slowly, but still moving forward.

Because it's only when we start moving that we discover we have more strength within us than we thought. Have the courage to jump.

You can explore the project featured in this article here: