PHINMA Education recently collaborated with Stratpoint, a software development company specializing in agile software development, cloud, data, AI, and emerging technologies.

Through the partnership, five IT faculty members from PHINMA Araullo University, PHINMA Cagayan de Oro College, Southwestern University PHINMA, PHINMA University of Iloilo and PHINMA University of Pangasinan went on the Stratpoint immersion from November 2021 to March 2022 – and had a revelation.

SURPRISE! 

When asked how things were, all five teachers laughed. They said they all became close because things were difficult. They had to help one another to get to the finish line.

The teachers went through various technical bootcamps before being assigned to different projects. Stratpoint’s technical bootcamp covered courses like Data Privacy Overview, DevOps 101, Quality Assurance Playbook, Git 101, Scrum Workshop, JavaScript 101, NodeJS 101, and Automation 101.

The team was supervised by the Stratpoint project immersion team: Ching Parungao, Technical Training Manager and Ram Nacino, Quality Assurance Capability Lead. There was a daily checkpoint to monitor their progress.

THE STRUGGLE IS REAL

“We are learning new technologies from scratch since these are new technologies. It has driven me to conduct more practices and research to solidify my learning. But so far everything is manageable with the help of our mentors like Sir Ching and Sir Ram from QA”, shared Chester Allan F. Bautista from PHINMA University of Pangasinan.

Generally, the teachers were challenged by new technologies they were learning. In addition,   there were external factors such as COVID-19 and Typhoon Odette which negatively impacted the pace of their learning.

Ira, the lone female in the group, teaches at Southwestern University PHINMA in Cebu which was badly hit by the typhoon. But she persevered and is now deployed to Project Timesheet Test Automation. She has successfully completed 30+ test use cases that made use of the training she got for Python and Selenium Framework.

HAPPILY DEPLOYED 

Adds Ira, “This industry immersion is a great learning experience for us and we are so grateful. In our first month with Stratpoint, we have learned a lot of things – from the new technologies and how processes/methodologies are done.  I hope that this program will continue in the years to come because I believe that teachers will  be more effective when immersed in the industry.”

Al and Chester are jointly deployed in Project Formula One (Resource Management Application).  Though the project tasks are challenging, they want to finish strong for the schools they represent and the deans who have supported them.

Al Golondrina of PHINMA Araullo University said that time is gold in Stratpoint. There were a lot of things to learn and when he contracted Covid in the last week of January, he felt that he lost a learning opportunity, “I am very impressed with Stratpoint’s culture. The company sponsors the employee’s certification exams (AWS, Azure, and more). They also regularly post the passers in the company group chat to motivate the team.”

Says Dr. Raymundo P. Reyes, Country Head-PHINMA Education, “We are very grateful to have partnered with Stratpoint. We thank them for agreeing to host our IT faculty for six months through this faculty immersion program. We want our teachers to get exposed to current industry practice so that in turn, they will be able to help our students. We want our students to be skilled and be able to compete in the job market.”