Mena Castillo finished DPI’s tech workforce training program in the spring of 2023.
Name: Mena Castillo
Current job title: Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software support, Oak Street Health.
We handle the two different software programs used for medical records here at Oak Street Health. Lots of debugging and rebooting for users. We also make sure that we are creating new user accounts, that staff have the proper level of security and proper access to sections of the EMR.
We also do a little bit of the training for new users, specifically related to using medical records.
Previous career: Third- and fourth- grade teacher in a dual language Spanish-English program.
When did you finish your training in DPI’s software development program? May 2023
Why tech? Why DPI? During COVID, we educators had to be home and had to learn how to create resources online. I was already pretty tech-heavy in my classroom. But at least for me, it was a lot of fun to explore that and be creative with it. I had a blast.
From there I decided that that’s really what I wanted to do: work with tech. I wanted to create the resources for the students. Especially because I was in a dual-language classroom, there weren’t always enough resources in Spanish. We had to go above and beyond to get things for students to do — and for parents too, because a lot of parents did not know English either.
I started researching the best way to make a transition. I got my master’s in educational technology, seeing if that was the avenue I wanted to go, and then I ended up finding DPI through the Facebook group Latinas in Tech. I had been looking everywhere for this kind of opportunity. It felt unreal.
Which skill from your previous career helped you the most in your current one? In teaching, you really have to keep up with trends and learn new things. It’s a career where you can’t advance unless you get more credits and get master’s degrees and learn more. I had that in me — always wanting to learn, always researching, always looking for the next big thing. That helped a lot when I began my training at DPI, especially being able to learn new software and new technologies and new skills fairly quickly.
It’s also helping in this new role. I was always pretty savvy with tech; I’m kind of the techie in my family, helping everybody else. My love of learning really helped in a professional tech setting.
What was the most important thing you learned along the way? When it comes to soft skills, being able to have the confidence to speak about my abilities and what I can bring to the table. DPI helped a lot with that.
Also, just being able to communicate with people from different departments and understanding that it’s necessary and OK to appoint yourself as a bridge between different departments and different people, especially with my knowledge in technology as well as my people skills. I was able to connect those two and almost translate between the tech world and the non-tech world.
When it comes to hard skills, the programming languages were the most important. We used Ruby on Rails with DPI, and on the side, I was using JavaScript and React, which is a programming and design language. As well as CSS and html.
It’s pretty similar to learning a new language. It just starts making sense at some point.
A surprising part about DPI was being able to really connect to everyone. To rely on and be able to help and get help from everyone. That was a little shocking, in a good way! We still talk. A few of us still message daily, try to meet up.
What do you like most about your job? I like the interactions with users. I know it’s not face-to-face but just knowing that I’m helping them and sort of relieving stress. My mom has issues with technology, and a lot of our staff users are in her age range and in her skill level. I like being the person who’s taking the time to explain to them or answer their questions and be nice to them. Hopefully somebody else is doing that for my mom when she needs it.
Where do you see yourself in five years? I would like to continue in this path of incorporating education and technology. The days when I’m leading new-user training are the days I get really excited. Right now, I’m helping the company update and change some of the visuals for their training, to make it a little more user-friendly and attention-grabbing.
While doing that, I’m always looking at how we can help staff in terms of training and access to growth and professional development. Even though I wanted to be out of education, that’s actually where I’m the happiest now.
More specifically, I would like to be in a role where I’m learning software development, developing new curricula and programs for companies related to tech and training. Ultimately, I hope to lead a team around those initiatives.
What advice do you have for people considering a shift to a tech career?
Just do it!
*Catching up with former DPI Workforce trainees
Author: Jeanie Chung