<p>So I'm a junior, majoring in EECS at Cal-Berkeley with an emphasis on computer science. I'm currently burdened by a pretty average GPA (3.1) because I did very poorly my first three semesters. I've never participated in research and have never held an internship position. And unfortunately I'm not on good enough terms with a professor that he or she would ever consider writing me a recommendation. </p>
<p>How hard will it be to acquire an internship position over the summer? I've taken pretty much all of the upper div CS courses (operating systems, algorithms, software engineering, databases, AI, etc.) except for a couple of senior design courses. </p>
<p>Looking ahead a year, how hard will it be to get in the software industry? How can I increase my chances of avoiding being unemployed besides getting an internship over the summer? Will major companies even bother perusing my resume considering my lack of experience/high gpa? </p>
<p>A 3.1 GPA at Berkeley is not bad at all. Just go out there and apply to as many places as possible. REUs or other summer research programs require letters of recommendation so just go ahead and ask for one. The worst that can happen is that they say no. Also, browse the Lawrence Berkeley Lab's website and email some scientist about working for them.</p>
<p>You'll eventually get a job. I would be worried if you had a <2.5 GPA, but even with that you'd get a job, eventually.</p>
<p>Engineering tend to make you think everybody around you have better grades, but chances are, you are doing pretty well with a 3.1 at Berkeley. That should be good enough for a lot of internships, as 3.0 is generally the cutoff. </p>
<p>Even if you don't have an internship, you'll be fine, I know plenty of people with no internships and 2.6-2.8 level gpa who landed pretty good jobs before graduation. That's one of the best things about engineering, keep in mind that internships are harder to come by than full time entry level jobs. I had maybe 1 or 2 offers for internships, and by graduation, I had 4-5 easily, not trying nearly as much as I did for internships. </p>
<p>Another thing is, focus on interview skills. Do mocks, our career services offered one on one mock interviews where they tape you while you did the mock interviews, and review it with you afterwards, look at yourself in the mirror while you speak, create stories for different questions. People don't realize that once you get an interview, the GPA doesn't matter, not that it'll hurt you, since 3.1 from Berkeley EECS is pretty damn good.</p>
<p>Employers don't generally distinguish between a 3.1 and a 4.0 from what I can tell. I doubt in an internship you'll ever use more than B-level knowledge of any course anyway.</p>
<p>there is a difference between 3.1 and 4.0, especially for the high profile engineering jobs, you probably won't get an interview with google or microsoft with a 3.1, but he's right, for the not-as-competitive jobs, it's fine.</p>
<p>
[quote]
there is a difference between 3.1 and 4.0, especially for the high profile engineering jobs
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Actually I guess you're right. Looking at our career services site, about half want a 3.5 and half want a 3.0 from GT ECE students. I didn't see any correlation between company prestige and gpa required though. IBM/Intel wanted a 3.0, Nvidia/Microsoft wanted a 3.5, for example.</p>
<p>I am sure if you are from TOP 5 CS school (Which berkeley is 1st)... the general cutoff is 3.0 for Microsoft... I got alot of friend doing CS at UIUC(which Berkeley is better) got an interview with MIcrosoft with like 3.1-3.2 GPA. From what I was told, almost all the software companies require a 3.0 cutoff (Except Google which is around 3.5 and JP Morgan which require 3.2). There is this thing at UIUC that if you get GPA above 3.0 you are qualified for an onsite interview with 95% of the companies. So 3.1 from Berkeley shouldn't be a problem, what matters is how good your interview is.</p>
<p>There's a company chasing my son for an interview for an internship (CS job) next summer (he's a sophomore) and they specified at least a 3.0. There are opportunities at his school which I suggested he pursue for winter break and spring semester research internships. He had some interest from a few other places too but he hasn't filled out the applications for those places yet.</p>
<p>We've hired four CS grads in the past year and have lost some employees due to startups. On Friday, I ran into an old friend that worked at a nearby company as a contractor and he's come to work for our company as a full-time employee doing software engineering in operating systems stuff. From what I can tell, internship opportunities and jobs are decent for CS grads in New England. I don't know what they will be like next summer though.</p>
<p>I saw a few openings at Motorola locally and was pretty shocked given their financial situation. They want a few spring CS grads to sign on before the end of the year.</p>
<p>Have you tried asking present and past professors for recommendations? It can't really hurt and might help.</p>
<p>Have you tried your school's career center? Do they arrange job fairs? Does the department have an email list for internship opportunities in-house or otherwise? Do you have an interest and aptitude in something like Summer of Code?</p>
<p>Have you held a job before? Sometimes job experience (it doesn't matter what the experience is) helps you to land a job or internship as it shows an employer that you can show up on time, follow directions, etc. Are there tutoring jobs on campus available?</p>
<p>Some work on open source projects probably look good on a resume. There are lots of open source projects out there looking for help. It's unpaid, but it's frequently possible to pick a niche area and become the expert in the area. Sometimes unpaid work on open source projects leads to paid jobs. LAMP is a good thing to know right now. Javascript, JAVA, .net, etc.</p>
<p>Do you know the area in which you want to work when you graduate? There are always application jobs out there. But if you want to specialize in some areas that require more theory, then you might want to shoot for internships for companies that specialize in those areas. For example, if you want to go into security, you might look into RSA (recently bought out by EMC).</p>
<p>If you have a low gpa, a good project can really make up for it. Such as if you graduate from any cs school with a sub 3,0, but then you are lets say a core developer with a huge open source project, you will be eaten up before somebody with a 4.0.</p>
<p>Because truthfully there are a whole bunch of CS students with high gpa's who are complete dumb asses. They know absolutely nothing about good coding and even less about software engineering. Thogh there are many who are very good.</p>
<p>so having a high gpa only gets you about a 3rd of the way, where as a low gpa doesn't get you that far and you still need to catch up somehow.</p>
<p>so if you graduate with a 2.5 and are also a core developer for lets say FreeBSD, you know your ****, you know it better than probably the professor who taught you operating systems in college. I know guys who do it, because theory and practice are two different things completely.</p>
<p>You do have lots of time to work on improving some of your perceived resume deficiencies. Can you get in on some research now, before the summer? Which would also supply recommendation source you're probably going to need.</p>
<p>My son anticipated a gpa problem too coming from a top CS program so reacted accordingly and I think his strategies helped. For instance he asked to become a TA for a freshman course...I have no doubt that was looked upon favorably, plus supplied him a valuable rec. Some other leadership EC's (fraternity officer, other stuff). He also did significant research. Anyway in spite of gpa near yours (3.2 I think at the time) he got, among others, internship at top NYC i-bank (his CS direction was toward financial industry). You'd think he would have needed say 3.8 or so...not true. I believe once you qualify, it's all the interview(s). You need to know your **** as ^^^ said, that's truest of all. </p>
<p>I'd work on strengthening your resume...do something substantial that sets you apart. Practice interviewing skills. With B/B+ in your program from UCB you'll be fine.</p>