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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWhen 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.\n\nDays passed, then weeks, and I still wasn't getting any responses.\n\nI sent applications everywhere there was even the slightest chance that someone might need a data analyst, even a beginner.\n\nEvery time I refreshed my inbox, it ended the same way.\n\nSilence.\n\nAnd I genuinely wanted to gain experience, to feel that I was doing something real, something meaningful, something that would leave a mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One day, during a course I was taking, a dataset about shark attacks appeared.\n\nI usually didn't work with practice datasets because they lacked life, real context, that spark that makes analysis become a story.\n\nBut this dataset was different.\n\nRaw, chaotic, full of details that seemed to be asking to be organized.\n\nI started putting together a plan for a project that could have two stages and show something more than an ordinary analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.\n\nI 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.\n\nOn the website, there was a link to download real data on shark incidents.\n\nReal data.\n\nNot a simulation.\n\nNot an exercise.\n\nThe kind of data that someone had been collecting for years, with care, with a mission, and with a sense of responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I felt excited because I suddenly saw a real opportunity for a volunteer position in it.\n\nA first project that could be something more than a course assignment.\n\nHowever, I knew that if I wanted to try, the first step had to come from me.\n\nI had to propose the collaboration.\n\nTo knock on the door and wait for someone to open it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that was the hardest part.\n\nThat 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.\n\nI knew what I should do, but the awareness that I had to be the one to take the initiative made my heart race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite that, I sat down and wrote the email.\n\nI 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.\n\nAnd when I pressed \"Send,\" my hands were shaking like jelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sent the message and waited.\n\nOne day passed. Then a second. Then a third.\n\nSilence.\n\nI thought that, once again, nothing would come of it, but something inside me wouldn't let me give up.\n\nI wrote again, this time to a different email address, with the same message.\n\nAnd only after a few more days did a reply arrive.\n\nA positive one.\n\nThat's how my first real volunteer collaboration began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The director of GSAF lived in Australia, so we worked in completely different time zones.\n\nWhen I was starting my day, he was finishing his.\n\nWhen I was asleep, he was reviewing my revisions.\n\nThere was something surreal about it, but also incredibly motivating.\n\nFor two intense weeks, I prepared the data, cleaned it, analyzed it, and built the dashboard.\n\nThen came another week of revisions, this time involving a GSAF investigator from the same time zone.\n\nWe worked on the details, refined the categories, and checked for consistency.\n\nI felt that I was doing something real, something important, something meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe project turned out to be a great success.\n\nI 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.\n\nAnd yet, it was that courage that made everything turn out differently than I had expected.\n\nI gained a great deal of recognition, and I still keep in touch with the GSAF team to this day.\n\nAt one point, I was even offered the opportunity to become one of the investigators.\n\nIf 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.\n\nTo this day, I smile at the thought that someone saw me in that role at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe in a year we'll work together again to refresh the data.\n\nOr maybe one of you will do it, someone who, just like me, will be looking for their first opportunity.\n\nYou never know where a single click, a single inquiry, or a single brave decision might lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This project taught me something that can't be learned from any textbook.\n\nThat courage really can open doors we didn't even know existed.\n\nThat 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.\n\nThanks to this project, I gained a confidence I didn't have before.\n\nI received a letter of recommendation that became a symbol for me that I am capable.\n\nI gained a project that wasn't an exercise, but a real collaboration with a real organization.\n\nIts presence on my r\u00e9sum\u00e9 and in my portfolio, as an international collaboration, helped me greatly in getting my first job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I look back on all of this, I can see that it wasn't a coincidence.\n\nIt was the result of small, courageous decisions that I made despite my fear.\n\nAnd I think that's the most beautiful part of this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes we can feel that we're not good enough, too weak, or too inexperienced to take that first step.\n\nWe stand at the edge, looking at deep water, convinced that if we jump, we'll drown.\n\nAnd 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.\n\nMaybe uncertainly, maybe slowly, but still moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because it's only when we start moving that we discover we have more strength within us than we thought.\n\nHave the courage to jump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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