↗️ 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.