↗️ Redirecting Again: Leaving Industrial Automation at IFSP
After much consideration, I decided to officially drop out of the Industrial Automation program at IFSP – Campus São Paulo.
By that point, I had completed nearly 70% of the program’s curriculum, with solid performance across most technical and theoretical subjects. I wasn’t struggling academically — in fact, some of my best grades came from areas I truly connected with: programming, microcontrollers, digital systems, and mathematics. Those were the classes I genuinely looked forward to.
Still, as the semesters progressed, it became clear that the core direction of the program — centered around mechanical infrastructure, industrial plant systems, and electrical installations — wasn’t where I wanted to take my career. My interests had shifted further into software development, systems thinking, and information technology. And I couldn’t ignore that anymore.
This wasn’t the first time I had changed direction.
I had started my post-secondary path at FATEC-SP, studying Mechanical Projects, but found myself gravitating away from CAD-heavy coursework and deeper into automation and electronics. That led me to IFSP in 2010, hoping to go deeper into control systems and embedded hardware — a natural continuation of the hands-on experience I’d had in Mechatronics at SENAI Anchieta just a few years earlier:
IFSP was a good fit for a time. It built on my technical foundation and gave me a clearer view of how automation and control work at scale. But once again, I began to feel a disconnect — not with learning itself, but with the end goal. I realized I was more excited about code than about cabling, more interested in logic than in machinery.
Leaving IFSP wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t a failure either. It was another honest adjustment — one more step toward understanding what I actually want to work on. I left with a strong base in electronics, automation, and systems thinking, and a clearer sense that my next move would be toward software, networks, and code.
This wasn’t the end of anything. It was a pivot — again.