It’s 4:40 PM on a Tuesday in March 2022. While my classmates are desperately trying to make sense of probabilities involving Ada, Bob, and Charlie, something bothers me more: time. Class ends at 4:45 PM, and I’m racing against the clock. Will I be able to walk from my classroom to my dorm, set up my Zoom, and open all my teaching content before I get the emails that someone has joined my Zoom meeting? Specifically, will the seven girls I teach introductory CS (computer science) with coding in Scratch join before I can get everything sorted? This isn’t your typical after-school plan; this was my life.
I chose to spend my Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next five months teaching 7 to 13-year-olds how to code. Something I had never done before. What was I thinking? I just started my CS degree and am still getting my life organized in a new city. But I took that big swallow of faith and just jumped in.
Today, While She Is True is not just a local Canadian non-profit; it’s becoming a global phenomenon. We’re not “there” yet, but we’re well on our way.
What if 18-year-old me had said no? What if I had thought, “I have school; someone else can do this,” or “Why me?” Trust me, I’ve wrestled with those thoughts—and still do at times. But it’s not about what we think; it’s about how we choose to act on those thoughts. No thought lives rent-free!
I could have come up with a million excuses for why the work I was about to do was hard, irrelevant, or why I wasn’t equipped for it. But imagine if I had sat in those thoughts—then the 100-plus girls who have gained interest and mastery in coding wouldn’t exist, and their creativity and passion wouldn’t have been explored.
So how did I even go down this path? I just swallowed my fears and doubts. You can’t achieve anything great without stepping out of your comfort zone. The common path leads to the status quo, but those who distinguish themselves take the road less travelled. It’s not easy.
Take this summer as another example. I graduated with a first-class honours. I had work experience and received a great job offer the day after my graduation (I didn't even apply; my former boss at the internship site just called me up). But I chose to move back home in Winnipeg, earn $0, and run a free 6-week coding camp aimed at reaching about 45 students. What??
Yes, I did it. I burned through my savings—paying for rent back where I am based and helping cover some operational costs. But guess what? We raised $14,600 to run the camp, pay our two full-time staff, cover the venue, insurance, and everything in between. Above all, we reached 41 students who created innovative projects at our hackathon, ranging from ASL translators to AI chatbots and language learning helpers to math homework assistants. I was blown away. We had comments like, “I’ve never seen anything like this in Winnipeg.”
Comfort is easy, but when you take the unconventional route, people will comment—but that’s okay! You are made for more. Great things often come at a price, and that price is letting go of the ordinary. Choose the path not taken. Who knows how many hundreds or thousands of people are waiting for the business you’ll create, the startup that will solve a problem, or the charity that will change lives? Yes, that idea you’re thinking about as you read this—take that step and act on it. If you fail, fail fast. If you succeed, that’s everlasting.
I hope you choose the unconventional.