Sabre Academy: Collaboration, Development, and Satisfaction

The fourth semester of the “Quality Assurance in IT Projects (Sabre Academy)” course has just come to an end, and it has been a joy to co-teach such an outstanding group of students. Their ambition-driven approach, passion, and enthusiasm were truly inspiring.

Sabre Academy is dedicated to providing students with practical knowledge from Sabre experts. This is accomplished by sharing real-world examples from their daily activities through university-based lectures, labs, and workshops.

Upon graduating from my master’s studies, I considered pursuing further education and becoming a university lecturer. Yet, I found the IT world irresistibly tempting and fascinating. Once I started my first job, I knew I had found my career path, but my desire to teach others remained. Equipped with the knowledge and practical experience I have gained, I felt even better prepared for that role. After finding out about the Sabre Academy, I knew it was the perfect fit for me.

Together with the whole team, we started preparation for the course a few months before start of the first semester with the students. Our primary goal was to ensure the course was engaging, practical, and filled with specific and detail-oriented knowledge supported by examples from our daily work. We divided the course into blocks based on our areas of expertise, such as testing methodologies, backend testing, frontend testing, and performance testing. Each of us had the opportunity to teach sessions in the areas where we excel.

The first semester at Sabre Academy was a fantastic experience for all of us. It was immensely satisfying to watch students thrive as they develop new skills and broaden their understanding of software quality. We were primarily motivated by students acknowledging the practical knowledge gap in academic subjects related to the career path of a QA software developer.

With each semester, we grew in experience, refined our materials, and evolved as a team. The collaboration among us lecturers was invaluable, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experiences and the sense of support among each other.

This year, Kasia (Katarzyna Nowakowska) and Patrycja (Patrycja Popielarczyk) joined Sabre Academy and seamlessly integrated into the team, bringing a fresh perspective and expert knowledge. I asked them to describe their initial impressions.

On September 23, 2023, I joined Sabre Academy intending to improve my presentation skills and share knowledge about Quality Assurance with young minds.

Working at Sabre Academy has been incredibly rewarding for me. It is wonderful to see students discover new testing aspects and change their view from “it is so boring” to “it seems to be quite exciting”. Many of the tests they conduct during their studies are unit tests — for them, discovering how to conduct proper E2E and performance tests is entirely new. Sabre Academy may shape the career paths of some students.

In addition, I have connected with people at Sabre who perform similar duties to me and are always eager to help when necessary. Sabre Academy boasts a fantastic team, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.

— Kasia

Since it was my first time attending these classes, I can say that co-leading these sessions brings me immense satisfaction, especially when we receive feedback during classes or breaks that students find them highly enjoyable and express interest in participating in similar sessions. This feedback is entirely spontaneous, which personally motivates me to keep going.

Most of the individuals from this group where we conducted sessions will be interested in programming roles, so some of this knowledge may not directly apply to them. However, as they head into their dream jobs, they already grasp how things look from a tester’s perspective, and I believe their outlook will also change.

Moreover, armed with the knowledge acquired during the classes, they may now pay closer attention to software quality, a domain where the entire team shares responsibility, which not everyone is fully aware of.

— Patrycja

I am thrilled that Sabre Academy is thriving, which brings great satisfaction to me and the rest of the team. I am grateful for the chance to share my insights and to keep learning – from our students, from each other, and to benefit the whole experience. Sabre Academy has significantly boosted my growth as an IT professional and a lecturer, and I could not be more thankful for that.