Following our series of interviews with the members of our staff, today it is the turn of Kristina Vasic from Serbia. Kristina is an exchange student who wanted to share her first professional experience with us and we feel really proud of her decision. We have talked to her about what brought her to Quobis and aboutIAESTE, the program that made possible to have Kristina here.

What is IAESTE? How did you manage to obtain this training? IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience) is an international organization for exchanging students for technical work experience abroad. It provides trainships for students in technical degrees in more then 80 countries all over the world. As both Serbia and Spain are one of these countries, internship in Quobis showed up as one of the choice for students of electrical engineering in Serbia. High average marks and English language skills ware allowed me to choose between 20 different internships, and my choice was to come here.

You are working in the headquarters of Quobis in Galicia (NW of Spain), why did you choose this company? While choosing the best option for my internship abroad I was considering a number of conditions like job description, location, duration and time when practice will be performed. Practice in Quobis has attracted me with interesting area of work because it belongs to field of Electrical engineering that is familiar to me but is something that I have never done before. Also, I preferred to work in company then at the University. And at the end, Spain looked like a great place for visit!. What about your technical skills and interests? I am finishing studies in Electrical school of engineering at University of Belgrade, in the Department of Electronics. So, my mainly skills are connected with analog and digital design, design of RF circuits, integrated and embedded systems. Beside that, I have additional skills like programming in many languages, signal and image processing. Telecommunications systems also always belongs to field of my interests, but as I chose another orientation I haven’t as much knowledge in it as I want to have. I haven’t chosen yet in which one I will be focused in the future, but for now I am most interested in embedded systems. Which task were you assigned during your internship? I joined development team in Quobis and I got task to make testing suite for one of solutions they are currently working on. I wrote code that enables automated testing, so they can verify changes they made much faster. We don’t know a lot of things about Serbia, could you tell as about the current situation of the country? And about IT sector in Serbia? Serbia is a country located in Southeast Europe, in the middle of transient economy and, as we hope, at the end of turbulent history. On the brighter side, it is a country with a long tradition, delicious cuisine, beautiful nature and lot of unique costumes. Mentality of Serbians is very similar to Spanish: cheerful people, always full of hospitality and ready for fiestas! :) As we speaking about education, in this area we have always invested a lot, so school system is really on high level. Of course, there is a need for more effort in order to achieve balance between too much theory and not so much practice. We have a few schools of Electrical engineering but our experts are recognized worldwide. Because of that there are a lot of foreign IT companies that have its departments in Serbia. Also, in a last time many of small Serbian IT companies are founded and they progress rapidly. What was the greatest contribution of working in Quobis for you? Do you recommend other foreign students to come to Quobis for the trainings? This is my first working experience, and beside all knowledge that I gain here I think that most important is I that had an opportunity to work with such friendly and motivated people in pleasant working environment. Transition from collage to work can be a stressful experience, especially when you meet with some things for the first time, but my colleagues from Quobis helped me to get through all problems and doubts that I had on the beginning. Also, whoever comes here will have a chance to take a part in interesting and featured projects with team full of enthusiasm and motivation. I will warmly recommend to all students interested in IT to come here, get experience in Quobis and enjoy in working with its team! Finally, Is it easy for a “foreigner” to live and/or feel comfortable in Vigo? From the first day I arrived in Vigo, I encountered only hospitality and people always ready to help so soon after arriving I started to feel like at home. Mild weather and excellent food is also the things in which I am enjoying a lot here. I think that foreigners will also be delighted with charming old towns and sand beaches with which Galicia is full of! So I think that wherever somebodies come from they will for sure feel comfortable in Vigo!