Barcelona Technology School new academic year begins!

Barcelona Technology School is happy to welcome its new students. This October 2nd the editions of the Master in Digital Solutions Development and the Master in Big Data Solutions begun, with more than 17 nationalities represented and a great percentage of women participation, BTS is glad about the diverse and talented group we have in the campus this year.

Sereen Masri, a student from the Master in Digital Solutions Development, tell us a bit about herself and her student experience these first days at Barcelona Technology School:

My name is Sereen Masri, I was born and raised in the U.S., but I am originally of Middle Eastern decent. I studied communication during my undergraduate studies and began my career working in IT government consulting for the last two years after I graduated.

Here, I was introduced to the Software Development Lifecycle and the IT world with my first few projects working in government consulting. I began as a Quality Assurance analyst, and then went on to Requirements Elicitation; I was quite exposed to the digital world, however working for the federal government, innovation tends to be a few years behind in the trends.

Some of my personal goals are to gain a mid-level understanding about coding and what goes on behind the scenes when developing technical products. This experience will be able to provide me with a well-rounded understanding of the industry, despite whether or not I actually want to be a front end or back end developer. Knowledge is power no matter what your roles is. I am very interested in User Experience design and research, analyzing the human psyche to help create a product that users want and need.

I have begun my first day at BTS and so far, it is great, the staff seems to be very involved, resourceful and well connected within the Tech community here in Barcelona as well as internationally! Speaking of internationally, my classmates come from over ten different countries and there is at least one person from almost every continent, except Australia. This is a huge advantage as it will provide a very wide range of opinions, experiences and knowledge that can be shared resources throughout the duration of the program. With over 8 spoken languages, and more than 5 different coding languages this group of people is more than culturally diverse but also technologically diverse. It is nice to see the women in the program, as finding women in technology isn’t always the most common thing. However, I would like to see more, maybe next year!

The Master’s intro began with an inspirational presentation about how time is very precious, it is also fleeting and the most uncontrolled concept in life. Time cannot be stopped, fast forwarded, rewinded…etc. The only time we have is now and it is important to seize every moment and to really soak up all the information that is given to us.

This concept is very beautiful and powerful since we as human beings have created the concept of time. Another wonderful point that was presented in the opening of the course was the concept of Ikigai – this is a Japanese concept that represents your life purpose— finding what lights your fire in life is quite hard, but once you have found it, you want to do everything you can to hold on to it.

Creating a purpose in your career and life is more important than any work you will do. When you go through life on autopilot and not really passionate about your tasks, you will not perform them to the best of your ability. This concept of autopilot reduces productivity in the workforce and creates a society full of dull humans who lack purpose with minimal satisfaction in life.

This past summer I abruptly left my job and bought a one-way ticket to Barcelona to search for my Ikigai. I wanted to excel in my career differently than I was at the time, I wanted to learn more, I wanted to see more and find something that ignites my fire. When I found this program I felt something click and I realized this is where I need to be. As for the first few days, it is safe to say that I am very excited for what comes next and for all the knowledge and connections I will gain in this program.