Graduate Profile: Sydney Atencio

Sydney Atencio’s career journey is defined by determination, sacrifice, and transformation. At the young age of 19, she became a mother and entered Warren Village, a transitional housing program offering childcare and life-skills classes, while she worked and studied for her degree.

With this support, Sydney finished her bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the Art Institute of Colorado and launched a career in marketing and design. For seven years, she thrived at a small automotive business until the COVID pandemic upended her stability.

Forced to Pivot by COVID-19

Losing her job and, soon after, her apartment, Sydney, her husband, and their daughter moved into a family member’s basement. To get by, she began freelancing in graphic design, but the work was inconsistent and increasingly demanded web-based skills outside her expertise.

Remembering the career resources she had heard about at Warren Village, Sydney thought back to ActivateWork’s tuition-free workforce training programs. With an influx of freelance projects requiring a different skill set, she decided to enroll in ActivateWorks’ IT Support & Security Fundamentals bootcamp.

“So many of the projects were getting increasingly complex and outside my scope,” she said.

“I needed a way to build my skills without a huge financial or time commitment, as I didn’t want to spend that much time away from my family.”

The program was rigorous, requiring personal and family sacrifices, but Sydney was determined to show her daughter the value of hard work and resilience.

“Going through the ActivateWork program was extremely hard, especially because I was in the bootcamp during the holidays,” she said.

“I had to say no to a lot of things. This taught me and my daughter that sacrifice comes with hard work, but it’s 100 percent worth it.”

A New Beginning Thanks to ActivateWork

Upon graduation, Sydney landed an IT Support role with Sage Hospitality, an ActivateWork employer partner, applying her new skills to support hotel systems nationwide. With her new income, she and her family were finally able to buy their first home after years of living in a family member’s basement.

But ActivateWork’s impact extended beyond Sydney’s career. It also opened new doors for her daughter through Bring Your Kid to Work Day tours in downtown Denver, a new computer gifted by Sage leadership, and even opportunities to travel out of state for summer camp.

“My daughter has been with me through every up and down,” she said.

“She watched me graduate from college, lose my job, excel from intern to full-time designer, start freelancing, get married, and even helped me study for ActivateWork exams. Now she’s watching all that work pay off as we move into our own home after four years of living in a basement and struggling to get on our feet.”

Living by Example for Her Daughter

Today, Sydney continues to advance her career and upskill both through ActivateWork and directly through her employer, where she is currently obtaining her CompTIA Security+ certification.

Though she once dreamed of blending graphic design and tech through software development, she has found passion, opportunity, and stability in IT. Sydney credits ActivateWork for giving her a pathway to stability, growth, and renewed family dynamics, proving to both her and her daughter the power of perseverance.

“I wanted to prove to my daughter that we can do hard things,” she said. ”We can do it scared, and we can do it with a lot of ambition. ActivateWork helped me show her the way.”