How I started a comfortable Canadian life from scratch as an international student — Intro

Hi, Welcome to my blog. My name is Angela. I am a business technologist living in Vancouver. I grew up in Beijing and came to Canada for university.

Hi, I’m Angela. A hiker, violin player, business technologist living in Vancouver.

I recently picked up writing again, from back then when I was a middle school student, but that was in Mandarin. I missed the old feelings when I can speak out with new ideas on my mind and reflect on life. So I am going to do the same, but this time, in English.

I have been thinking what to write for my first blog in English, without much figured out, I decided to just reflect on my life so far and share about my journey and strategies on how to start a comfortable Canadian life from scratch as an international student.

I came to Canada all by myself, no families, no friends, no connections, zero, nothing.

I spent years building my life from scratch, everything is so much different in Canada and I am not an English native speaker.

Within only 4 years at UBC, I ended up with multiple scholarships, various Dean’s Honour Rolls, 3 Canadian internships and full-time offers from big companies. at the point around when I graduated.

I graduated!

After graduation, I chose to move to Calgary for work, to start my life officially with zero financial support from my parents from then. I could support myself with a nice waterfront condo downtown and visit places around Alberta. I feel really proud of myself on this as a fresh international graduate.

I thought life couldn’t be better until I was laid off due to Covid firm restructuring. I adjusted quickly and started to look. I feel grateful looking back because it forced me to rethink what I want to become, what I want to focus on my career and in my life. Then I found a new job during Covid. I joined a SaaS software company as a developer and moved back to Vancouver for this job.

There is no experience that is a waste of time and I believe every experience counts. Although I am back to where I begin geographically, but I have grown so much so far, maturer for sure. And I got to see the world more and gained so many good friendships.

I tried to go hiking every weekend during my time in Calgary in summer. Banff is awesome!

Later I found pure software is not a good fit for me so I decided to join a non-for-profit organization as a technology consultant to the management.

Now I have my own independent life, a life that is comfortable enough to make future plans about an even more exciting life. I wish to enter a stage with the famous term — “Financial independence” and retire early, where I can read as many books I want, travel to see the world slowly and study whatever that interests me……

Follow me to see more possibilities and tricks from a student to a professional.

Thank you. I hope you enjoy my little reflections on my life so far. I will make more blogs on how I achieve my different stages.

Sincerely,

Angela