From not being allowed to study to Software Developer
How Khatima pursued her education and dream to become a software developer despite the taliban ban on women's education.
In 2019, Khatima Sajadi began her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at Kandahar University in Afghanistan. She was exactly where she wanted to be, building the foundation for a career in tech, driven and clear-eyed about her future.
Two years later, everything stopped.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, Khatima could no longer continue her degree. The classroom she had worked so hard to enter was suddenly closed to her, not because of her ability, not because of her grades, but because of who she was.
She didn't give up. She kept learning remotely, taking on freelance web development projects and a data science internship, refusing to let circumstances define her ceiling. But she knew that to truly build the future she envisioned, she needed to start again somewhere she was allowed to.
Imagine Student Airlift Afghanistan: The Scholarship that changed everything
In 2024, that chance came. Khatima received the Imagine Student Airlift Afghan Scholarship — a lifeline that brought her to Germany to resume her studies at the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, where she enrolled in a Bachelor's in Data Science.
She arrived with strong technical skills, deep resilience, and zero German.
Within her first year, she was excelling in her coursework, building machine learning models, working across full-stack development, and diving deep into data science. She was also quietly learning German on the side, adding it to a language repertoire that already included Persian, Dari, Pashto, and English. Not her second language. Her fourth.
Imagine's holistic career support: Career Compass
But Khatima didn't want to stop at just studying. She wanted to be ready for the real world.
So she joined Imagine's Career Compass program and started applying for working student positions, sending out over 30 applications. Imagine supported her with CV coaching, helped her navigate the German job market, and when an interview finally came through, prepared her with mock interviews so she could walk in confident and ready.
She got the offer.
Today, Khatima is a working student in Software Development at Validas AG in Munich, writing code, contributing to real projects, and building the career that was once taken from her.
She is 4 languages in, one degree underway, and just getting started.
"Stay consistent. Don't let rejection affect your motivation. Each experience gets you closer." — Khatima Sajadi, Working Student in Software Development, Validas AG
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