Desislava Aleksandrova’s journey from French lessons to computational linguistics

Desislava Aleksandrova, commonly known as Dessy, is originally from Bulgaria. Arriving in Canada in December 2012, she quickly enrolled at the Université de Montréal to improve her French, which, against all odds, led her to programming. Here’s the story of an atypical career path.
With a degree in international economic relations from Bulgaria, Dessy worked at various jobs throughout her studies to make ends meet. At the time, the situation in post-communist Bulgaria did not make it easy to enter the workforce. It wasn’t in her field of training that she got her start. She worked as a web project manager for seven years, during which time she had the opportunity to learn all the tricks of the trade. With these skills in hand, she imagined finding a similar job in Canada, but she had to overcome the language barrier. Dessy doesn’t speak French.
“I opted for a major in linguistics at the expense of literature” – Desislava Aleksandrova
Determined to make a success of her integration into this new country, she took the francization program offered by the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI). It was there that a professor recommended that she enroll in university to perfect her French. This advice didn’t fall on deaf ears. Dessy joined the Linguistics and Literature undergraduate program in 2015. Pandora’s box was open, but far from without pitfalls. French is a complex language, and Dessy hasn’t yet mastered all its subtleties. At the time, she was thinking of enrolling in a literature course: “The linguistic terms syntax, morphology, semantics, etc. meant something to me, but I mistakenly thought they were studies in traditional grammar (of French). When I learned that linguistics was rather the science of language and as such was descriptive (rather than normative) and not limited to a single language, I opted for a major in linguistics at the expense of literature.”
Unsurprisingly, two years after her first enrolment at the university, Dessy decided to pursue a Master’s degree, still in the same UdeM department: “I developed a growing interest in the interdisciplinary field of Natural Language Processing (NLP), which includes both linguistic and computer science components.” What appeals to her about this burgeoning field? “It’s both empirical and applied, which gives us the chance to design and conduct experiments in support of our hypotheses.” That’s how programming came into Dessy’s life. However, as with her arrival in Quebec, she began to have doubts, this time about her own skills.
“You learn more from mistakes than from successes. So it’s necessary to feel comfortable making them without feeling inferior or guilty.” – Desislava Aleksandrova
Persevering, it was thanks to an internship that she overcame her fears: “In the end, what enabled me to remove this initial blockage was my internship at the Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Montréal (CRIM), where I had no choice but to put into practice some of the techniques I had learned in class.” Thanks to this experience, she knows she is capable of working as a researcher and in French. And where there’s putting things into practice, there’s also taking risks! When Dessy is asked what advice she would give to young female students, her answer is not to be afraid of making mistakes. “As girls, we’re often encouraged to achieve (and maintain) excellence by avoiding mistakes. You don’t make mistakes if you’re good, if you get excellent grades at school. However, in many disciplines (including programming), you learn more from mistakes than from good ones. So it’s necessary to feel comfortable making them without feeling inferior or guilty.”
The young woman with an inexhaustible thirst for learning also plans to perfect her skills in mathematics and statistics: “After so many years of study, you get good at self-education, and as there’s no shortage of online courses, it’s often tempting. On the other hand, you learn a lot from practical experience and, above all, from working with other, more competent people.” In fact, one of the next milestones on her career path is the submission of her dissertation, Détection multilingue de phrases subjectives dans Wikipedia, which she sees as more of a passage than a culmination.
Introduced to research by chance four years ago, Dessy discovered a field of study and work that she had previously been completely unaware of, and in which she now thrives. Often conditioned by our background and/or ambitions, do we miss out on certain opportunities in spite of ourselves? After all, the most important thing is to live with passion. Even if that means taking a French course.
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