Еlisabete A.M. was part of the first group of trainees who successfully graduated the Direction Employment requalification course, called SWitCH by the Portuguese partner of the project, the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. Here is what she shared about her experience in the project.
"Computer science and IT technologies are a window to the world. The recognition of this reality gives us an open mind to integrate and feel integrated in a society increasingly predisposed to this experience.
Despite having a know-how of over more than 10 years in a very different sector - health, the eagerness to learn more, to embrace new challenges made me leave what I had already reached.
Obviously it was a decision that forced me to restructure my whole life, but I did it, aware that something bigger and better would wait for me. For better or for worse, IT is an endless path, but all stages have attractive details, and achieving the objectives, we set ourselves, is a stimulus itself. SWitCH has an extraordinary scope both in terms of IT tools, such as languages and work methodologies.
I believe that the agile methodologies applied, the teamwork, the need to reach predefined goals, provide us with an extraordinary capacity to face the labor market.
In my opinion, when I enter in SWitCH, I found more than just learning to program. I learned to think again, to conjure up all possibilities, to be more critical.
Obviously in such a short space of time I could hardly master all languages, but I trust that I developed the Mind Set, to know where to look, how to look, how to plan not to fail!
And now I just hope to make my small contribution into the IT field, and always continue to learn, with the certainty that we know nothing, but we are always a step forward from yesterday!