Zaynab Jan

I was born in Ottawa, Canada, and my parents are from Pakistan, so I consider myself to be both Canadian and Pakistani.

Growing up, I was always told that I should be an entrepreneur. Just because all the people who were always around me told me, “You have a voice, you have a personality where you can so easily convince people to do what you want them to do.”

I realized that starting your own business isn’t as easy as it looks and so as if right now, I am hoping to complete my accounting degree and work with something according to that. I love makeup, I love fashion, all that kind of stuff. So I think it would be awesome to work for a company where I can mix my business background and as well as my hobbies. My dream job right now would be working for a corporate company where I can mix my business background as well as my hobbies.

My early childhood consisted of being around family. I grew up around aunts, uncles, grandparents so it was very nice for me to be able to be with them. I was able to see them probably almost every day. As far as I can remember, I spent definitely every weekend around family and I think I was able to find my identity because of how much I was around family during my childhood.

I’m also Muslim, and I consider that my identity as well. I am a Pakistani-Muslim living in America. The family I grew up in definitely shaped who I am right now. I try to live accordingly to everything they taught me, and I hope I am doing well at that.

There is a quote that I like to live by: “There is two days that matters most in your life. The day you were born and the day you find out why.”

The most defining moment in my life occurred when I started to go to school. I felt like I was finally going to figure out the purpose of my life. I thought I would be able to become something and do something with my life and hopefully change and alter other people’s lives in a good way.

I define success as doing something that makes you happy, but also helping people on the way there. I’d like to think I’ve achieved part of my success now and I hope to only achieve more in the future.