School of Centric

What is School of Centric?

School of Centric is a dedicated department that aims to develop and support institutional and individual capabilities to deliver performance in line with the strategies of Centric IT Solutions Romania.

The role of the program is to support every employee in the process of continuous learning and professional development, facilitating access to different courses, conferences, books, e-learning platforms and other learning resources.

Technical & Soft Skills Courses

We have an enthusiastic training team that excels at adapting and customizing courses to the needs of our employees, creating examples and exercises that lead to a better understanding of the concepts.

Mentorship Program

We always try to put forward initiatives that help us grow personally and grow as a company, as well. One such initiative is the Centric Mentorship Program. The aim of the whole program is not to simply transfer knowledge from a mentor to a mentee, but to create, inside Centric, a culture where knowledge is shared easily with others while building honest relationships.

An Internal Library

We have a library where employees can find hundreds of books on various topics: business development, personal development, software development, networking, design, and more.

Network of training providers

We are always looking for new providers and trainers in the education market who can help us offer the best educational experiences.

E-learning Platforms

We have licenses for Pluralsight, Udemy, and CBTNuggets that employees can use to get access to courses in various fields.

Certifications

We provide funding for certifications that employees can use to access different courses and certification exams like Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Business Analyst, ISTQB, and Prince2@Foundation&Practitioner.

Ionela Marinica

Team Lead & School of Centric Trainer

"School of Centric is an amazing program, and I believe every company - regardless of the business domain - should have such initiatives for their employees. With SoC, employees have the opportunity to invest in their development both at work and at home. Centric is really keen on helping people grow and School of Centric is a great program in that respect.

For me, School of Centric is a place where dreams come true. I love trainings (as a participant and a trainer) and I’ve been looking for a place to be a trainer for quite some time. So, since joining Centric, I have enjoyed attending some great courses, but also delivering my own.

I really like the fact that it includes trainings from a range of topics and areas, not only technical. There are courses on communication, giving and accepting feedback, leadership, writing, scrum and other Agile methodologies, and security. I think there is a perfect balance in what it offers, and it contains the exact mix someone in software development should be familiar with. I also find it really great that trainings are interactive, allow participants to be involved; they perfectly combine the theoretical part with practical exercises.

School of Centric provides a lot of benefits to our colleagues, and this is true for those that choose to be participants, but also for those that are trainers. For participants, School of Centric offers the opportunity to learn new things, to acquire new skills, to connect with colleagues, to share information and exchange ideas or simply discuss technical challenges they’ve encountered on their projects. For trainers, it also provides the chance to expand their comfort zone by getting involved in other activities apart from their day-to-day duties. In addition, it allows them to be actively involved in their colleagues’ progress.

On an IT community level, I believe such programs emphasize the importance of personal and professional development, and how helpful it is for companies to be as involved as possible in supporting their people’s growth.

Those involved in School of Centric are a fun, smart group of enthusiastic people who have a lot to share and being part of that group is really nice."

Brindusa Gamaniata

QA Lead & School of Centric Trainer

"My first involvement in School of Centric was as a trainer, when I was asked to hold the Selenium Essentials training. I had the chance to prepare the course and make it better over time. This course was first done internally in Iasi and last year, we had the chance to do it in the Netherlands. It's called School of Centric International. It was a challenge to adapt the course for a different audience. But it was nice to be able to share what we know and our colleagues in the Netherlands enjoyed it. I also helped teach the Selenium Essentials course at the Math Faculty and FEAA. Now others teach the courses but, in this way, people grow from participant to trainer and from trainer to coach.

Another great part of School of Centric is the opportunity to become Train the Trainer certified. It was a nice opportunity to improve the way that I teach. I also felt more like a teacher this way - learning how to create a course, create a plan, goals, expectations, and what our colleagues will learn. This was also implemented by other trainers that got certified. You can see this in the way the courses are described and organized.

School of Centric also gave me the opportunity to try courses in other disciplines. As someone with years of experience in QA, I was able to take courses in development. I decided to do this to better understand what developers are doing and what's behind what I am testing. I also went to a Docker course and now I know more and can create a proof of concept.

The best part of School of Centric is that you can help improve things. You can actually make things happen. It’s great to see change happening. You can see that people are going to courses and practicing what they learned."

There is a saying, that you really know a subject if you are able to teach it to others. I can say that this is 100% true, since teaching a course made me realize that my knowledge had strengthened and explaining technical topics comes more naturally to me now.

The foundation of School of Centric is the knowledge sharing mindset, which results in increased technical knowledge within our colleagues and really, the entire IT community of Iasi."