Shafit Kazi

2/19/2022

Elisabeth von Uhl

The City College of New York

160 Convent Ave

New York, NY 10031

Dear Professor,

Let me start by telling you about myself. I am Shafit, like a lot of others here in New York I am an immigrant. I was born and raised in Bangladesh. Despite it being a county filled with greens and rivers, I grew up in the capital city Dhaka where only greens you might see on the billboards. So, when 2018 I moved here to Queens I felt right at home. I live here with my father, mother, older brother who goes to BMCC and my younger sister is in high school. I am grateful to have them in my life as they helped me to be the person I am today. And as of today, I want to work in the tech industry so that I can have an easy enough life.

After moving here, I decided to work directly in the tech world. I got a job with a minimum wage in an AT&T subcontractor firm. Started working too much actually and my boss slowly but surely gave me a few promotions as a lead troubleshooting technician. My work there was fun and not fun at the same time. The fun part was I got to travel all over New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The not-fun part was either it was too cold or too hot and a lot of work. I worked there for 2 years and realized that I need more education and knowledge to reach the platform of my goal, my dream job was not this. So, I quit and decided to do something about it.

To get to my desired computer technology profession, I decided to go to get my bachelor’s degree here at CCNY. From a young age, I fell in love with computers and gaming. That kind of shaped my mentality toward my career goals in life too. This will be my 2nd year here in CCNY. I am trying to get my degree in CS., yet I am still undecided. Because of the whole moving into a different country, I thought I should also explore other options than computer science, which made me undecided. now that I realized that I don’t enjoy them as I do with computers, I am back.

Due to the whole Covid -19 thing which hit right after I moved to a completely unknown place where I had to work my best just to provide rent and food for my family. I didn’t realize that this was going to be one of those chapters in my life that would be important, but holy cow was I wrong. Like I said I worked too hard, almost 60h-70h a week. I was working more than I should have. I didn’t have a social life like all other teenagers or adults around my age. Slowly but surely, I started feeling unhappy with almost everything. I did not enjoy anything for a long time. I was depressed and anxious almost all the time. Overthinking about my situation did me no good at all. After quitting my job and starting college, I tried consulting a professional. Which helped a lot, I started doing the things that made me feel happy. And while going through this whole healing process my advisor (Prof. Ann is the best and I love her) told me to take this and another (psychology) class to know more about me and people through these classes.

Finally, to find out what makes me happy I have tried and loved a lot of things such as cars, traveling, working out, swimming, anime, gaming and so much more. if you feel like you just want to talk to me about anything I will listen and enjoy the conversation with you. So come say hi.

Sincerely,

Shafit Kazi