From October 23 to 26, around 150 secondary and vocational school students will visit the National Scientific Computing Unit of the Foundation for Science and Technology as part of the "Open Week at FCCN". Students highlight opportunities for growth.
On Monday morning, 24 11th grade science and technology students from Sintra's Santa Maria Secondary School were the first to take part in Open Week FCCN. This initiative by the Foundation for National Scientific Computation (FCCN) has been taking place since 2019, with the aim of "giving students an inside look at the technology sector, exploring spaces, resources and professions".
These activities are also intended to "encourage students to eventually work in this area, particularly at FCCN" and to "publicize the services that FCCN offers future university students," says Joana Silvério, the Marketing and Communications service manager at the FCCN Unit.
During the morning, the students visited the auditorium, where they took a quiz to test their knowledge of FCCN and the world of technology, followed by guided tours of the Studios and Datacenter. The visit ended with a presentation about FCCN and its various services, and at the end the students had the opportunity to clarify their doubts in a session open to questions.
For 16-year-old Pedro Santos, this visit to the FCCN Unit was "interesting", especially because he had the opportunity to visit the FCCN Studio. For him, the tools provided by this structure will be "very useful" in his future as a student. Through this visit, he adds, he was able to familiarize himself with the world of technology and higher education. "It was an interesting visit and it gave me a different point of view." This is how 16-year-old Mariana Luísa described her visit to the FCCN Unit. As well as the Studio, the student was interested in how the Datacenter worked. The visit, she concludes, allowed her to learn about other options in areas that interest her, such as technology and computing.
