They come from all walks of life d hope to live the American dream. Most have college degrees and there are even those with mas- ter's degrees. But they're all trying to acquire new skills to keep up with the pace of today's high-tech world. There are even those who held lucrative positions elsewhere, and wanted a change, as well as those who felt it was time to leave their dead-end jobs. These are types of students who, attend the Software Advanced Technologies Institute (S.A.TI.) cam- pus in Concord. Sergey Chulikanov attended an electronics institute in Moscow and' after graduating, worked at various scientific and research institutions there. I "When I came to the U.S. three months ago, I decided to find a more interesting electronics institute," says Chulikanov. "I saw many different schools in this area and in San Francisco. And when I came to this school for the first time, I saw that there were many things that interest- ed me." He decided to enroll at the insti- tute and says that after only, two weeks he's been able to learn a lot about what he needs to succeed in the job market.

Chulikanov and many others hope to become software quaity assurance engineers after graduating from S.A.T.I. The institute focuses on training students to become familiar with software testing methodologies and the software quality process, with the goal of graduating and cer- tifying them in as little as five months. In addition, job placement is available for qualified students. Marina Averbukh, chief execu- tive officer of S.A.T.L founded the company in 1994 to meet the demands of a flourishing software industry Averbukh was a professional software developer, with a master's degree in computer science. She used to work for different c in the former Soviet Union, managed one of the departments the Institute of Space Research Azerbaijan. She also used to tea4 different computer disciplines Azerbaijan and was director of a private computer school there. "When I came here in 1992, it was actually my dream to continue to do what I've done," Averbukh says "And so it was logical for me to establish a computer school."
Averbukh started a computer training center at the Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto in 1993 and after seeing how successful it was, decided to start her own com- pany the following year. "Software quality assurance seemed like a good idea for people who have tremendous education, she says.-"It's a wonderful idea for them to go to our training and get a better paying job or their first job." Averbukh says she believes in the sigru'ficance of training potential software quality assurance engi- neers. She says that before software goes out on the market, it's impor- tant to test it to make sure that it's bug-free.