Meet Adelie.

I was 15 years old the first time I set foot in a school in the United States. I landed at Silver Creek High School in Longmont, Colorado with barely any English and a lot of curiosity. I learned the language, fell in love with the culture, and somewhere between the homework and the hallways, I made the decision: I was coming back.

Four years later, I did. At 19, with my French Baccalauréat général (science track) freshly in hand, I packed my bags and moved to Menlo College, a small private business school nestled in the heart of the Bay Area. I was surrounded by some of the most iconic companies in the world, places I admired since I was a kid and it felt nothing short of magical.

But here is the thing about being surrounded by brilliance: it can make you feel incredibly lost and small when you don’t know where you fit.

I graduated six months early, kudos to me, but without an offer letter. Therefore, as soon as I stepped off campus, I hit a wall. What was I supposed to do next? Back at Menlo I had explored so many different paths, blockchain, data, product management. I even considered commercial real estate after meeting a coach, Robert Teed who genuinely changed the way I thought about my career. I loved interior design. I loved technology. I loved the idea of working alongside engineers, not as one of them, but close enough to understand what they were building and help shape it.

Some may think I was being confused, unfocused, but I personally think I was just… multi-dimensional. It is not easy to find your passion and your reason for being when you’re in your early 20s. You spent years sitting in a classroom learning concepts after concepts, after concepts without ever slowing down and taking the moment to ask yourself, what do I want? Nobody has a roadmap for that, especially in a place like this one, where it is so competitive, where you can’t share your fears, doubts and concerns.

Although I know it is okay to fail. I was scared of it. I was also scared of picking the wrong road and being locked in a place that did not fit me. I’ve always believed that life is both long and short. Long enough to try many things, short enough not to waste time on the wrong ones. I wanted to move. I wanted to explore. I wanted to learn. I wanted to work across industries, meet people with different perspectives, and actually live the life I was building. But wanting all of that and not knowing where to start… it is its own kind of paralysis.

When COVID hit in 2020, I was in my first year of college, alone, far from family. I did what a lot of people did: I turned inward, and started learning. I joined SheCodes, a community for Women in Tech, and taught myself the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I can still feel the rush I felt when something finally clicked on my screen for the first time. It truly felt like magic.

I joined Firstbase two months after graduating from Menlo, and started working in marketing. Working in marketing operations was fun and I learned a bunch, however, deep down I knew it wasn’t it for me. What kept pulling me was the intersection between product and engineering. I’m not an engineer and I’ll never claim to be but I deeply admire what they build. The idea of collaborating with them, translating ideas into product decisions, sitting at the table, made my heart race in a way nothing else had. So I made the decision to apply to the Master of Science in Information Systems at Santa Clara University. I wanted more technical grounding, I wanted to understand the how so I could be better at the what.

What I was not prepared for was the exhaustion, the loss of hope, and the endless questioning that keeps you up in the middle of the night. We don’t really talk about it. Exploring, specializing, networking, I did all of that. I was going to networking events, asking questions, taking courses, working on real projects, building a portfolio, forcing myself to learn how to adapt quickly and always be ready to learn and master the new skill. You could be doing everything right, and still feel lost and alone. After some time passes, you start wondering if you made the right call, or if you totally messed up. And then we are back to the paralysis. I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe I was doing it all for nothing. That AI would replace the roles I wanted and worked so hard for. That the job market was too competitive, too aggressive, too unpredictable.

Last year, I didn’t find an internship. I was upset, disappointed, and frustrated. This started me questioning my entire life, I’m not even kidding, I was going through my career, my choices, my direction, my entire path. And through all of it, I kept thinking about my mom, still in Guadeloupe, working hard every single day so I could be here. So I could have this chance. The pressure of not wanting to let her down sat quietly underneath everything. Every rejection, every moment of doubt, every night I wondered if I had made the right call. I kept on asking myself where am I heading? Am I even heading somewhere? Am I just moving to feel like I’m moving? How can I make sense of all of it? How come I knew everything at 18, but nothing at 22? 23? 24? Or 25? (yes, that’s a Taylor Swift nod).

I didn’t have any answers. My mom, my professors, my mentors, my career coaches, they kept telling me I was doing everything right, to keep doing what I was doing.

Then, thanks to my friend Lisa, an 80 year old jewel celebrating her birthday in San Francisco, who somehow knew exactly who needed to be in the same room. She sat me next to Heather. I know she did it on purpose lol.

Solving the “Who Are You?” Problem

I didn’t know anything about H22 AI, Inc. that night. I just knew that Heather was someone I wanted to keep talking to so I reached out. Talking with Heather was intimidating at first, but her warmth, and passion made me feel at ease and also allowed me to let it all out. The frustration, the lack of hope, the uncertainty and the doubts. She listened to it all and then she shared her vision for the future of work and introduced me to H22. I was first very intrigued. She exposed me to an idea, a product, a vision that I wished I had when I started my undergrad studies. I always thought of my path as too unclear, too scattered, away from the norm. Because for a long time, the conversations I'd had about my career felt like they were about keywords, algorithms, certificates but never about me.

She understood the actual problem that people my age are facing. It wasn’t a resume problem, nor a skill gap problem. She understood the core problem, the internal one. The ‘who are you really?’ problem.

H22 is built around the idea that before you can navigate a changing world, you have to understand yourself first. Your life, your Learning, and Career. And unlike advice or words of encouragement, it gives you something concrete to work with. It leads you to action with your goals in mind.

I felt seen, and heard. Not as a candidate, and not as a demographic, but as someone who had been carrying a lot of uncertainty. I finally found something that was helpful. I was given a seat at the table, a voice. Being able to join H22 and work on their product, analyze it, test it, and find other students who face similar challenges that I did, was truly, or may I say, is truly a life changing experience.

Using H22 gave me perspective, I got to understand my strengths, my weaknesses, my challenges, and through these tools, I had actions to follow.

I’m 26, I’m three months away from finishing my master’s in my dream University. I’m working as a product intern at a startup I genuinely believe in. And for the first time in a long time, the decisions I’ve made, even the ones I doubted at the moment, are starting to make sense. When I look back at my path, I am starting to really understand my story. I’m not going to pretend I have everything figured out. I don’t. But I have hope now, and I am not as scared as I used to be. I’ve stopped being afraid of the uncertainty and I’ve stopped doubting myself for the choices I have made, because I finally have a framework for navigating it. The world is changing fast. AI is reshaping industries faster than any of us could have expected, and Gen Z, my generation, is graduating into a job market that looks nothing like what we were promised. It is not fair, and we were not prepared for it and it deserves more than a LinkedIn post telling us to “stay resilient”.

We deserve companies who think ahead for the future of their own offspring. We deserve to be heard and invited into the room. This future was built by people who are at the end of their career, without thinking about who comes next. If no one gives us a seat at the table, trains us, believes in us, guides us. What will the future of work look like?

We deserve tools that actually help us figure out who we are and what we're building toward.

That’s what H22 is for. And that’s why I’m here.