Ghazaleh Safaribeidokhti is no stranger to the resilience required to manage big life changes. The recent grad has not only navigated a new-to-her educational system, found a co-op in an extremely competitive market, and landed a job aligned with her area of study, but she has done it all while worrying about her family back home in Iran.
“It’s been very difficult, because they haven’t had access to the internet for three months now,” she says.
Ghazaleh explains that her parents and younger brother back in Iran can still make direct calls, but the realities of the conflict there limit her access to them. Thankfully, in moments of worry and loneliness, she is able to turn to her community for support. She lives in Halifax with her husband, a great source of comfort for her, and their friends from the Iranian community who can understand some of what Ghazaleh and her husband are experiencing.
“We get together and talk about the challenges we're facing because we're all going through similar things,” she says. “It feels good, because then we don’t feel so alone.”
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And community, it turns out, is a big part of Ghazaleh’s continued resilience.
From Iran to Nova Scotia
Growing up in Mashhad, the second-largest city in Iran, Ghazaleh was a bright student who loved to dance, studied martial arts, and completed both an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering and a master’s degree in telecommunication engineering.
We get together and talk about the challenges we're facing because we're all going through similar things.
“I started my career working as a business systems analyst focusing on blockchain-based projects in different sectors, like education, banking, and health care,” she says. “After working for about four years, I wanted to continue my education with some program that was a combination of business, technology, and data.”
She found Dalhousie’s Master of Digital Innovation (MDI), a joint degree from the Faculties of Management and Computer Science. It was exactly what she was looking for.
Because she was used to big-city life, Ghazaleh was charmed by Halifax’s size.
“There is a specific culture here, and most people are really friendly,” she says. “It's much smaller than our city, and at first, it was a little bit hard. But now, I really want to be here.”
Choosing MDI
Once settled in Canada, Ghazaleh began classes in the Data Science stream of the MDI program at Dal.
"After two or three weeks, I was thinking, ‘This is not what I'm truly looking for.’” She explains that, even though she understands coding, she wasn't interested in doing it full time. “MDI gave me more flexibility with the different certificates,” she says, referring to the option to study Digital Business, Data Science, or Health Informatics.
So, rather than giving up, she switched into Digital Business.
To Dal and back again
Sixteen months after beginning her third degree, Ghazaleh is crossing the stage with her second master’s and a full-time job.
I joined Dal as a business analyst about one month after finishing, and I can’t believe it.
“I joined Dal as a business analyst about one month after finishing, and I can’t believe it,” she says. She works with Dal’s OPIE team (Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness) and, in her words, “acting as a bridge between businesspeople and technical people.”
One day, Ghazaleh hopes to run her own business, and maybe do some travelling.
For now, though, she is focused on improving and progressing in her current role, and enjoying all Halifax has to offer.