<p>one of the biggest questions I have about pomona is the job opportunites after graduation, especially since pomona has a relatively small alumni network and not very good name recognition on the east coast. </p>
<p>does anyone know anything about this? I'm probably going to major in computer science/ math/ finance.</p>
<p>Though Pomona may not have good name recognition on the east coast, that’s only popularly speaking. All employers and grad schools that know anything about the top educational institutions of today know that Pomona’s among them.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, my brother (a current junior) was offered interviews at Bain and Boston Consulting Group. He got to a final round interview at Bain, and was offered an automatic final round interview for next fall. Additionally, he took a trip last January (sponsored by Pomona) to meet Pomona alumni working in the Bay Area at companies like Google.</p>
<p>So, while Pomona isn’t going to beat HYPSM for name recognition, the difference between other top schools (in reputation) is negligible. At a certain point, the school isn’t going to get you a job. It’ll be your own accomplishments that will make your resume better, not whether or not it says “Pomona” or some other top school.</p>
<p>My friend is majoring in Computer Science and Math (you can’t major in Finance at Pomona so I hope you meant Economics), and he is working at Amazon this summer, making an absurd amount of money as a sophomore by the way. However, if your sole concern is finding a job after college and you have a HYPSM to choose from, don’t let me stop you. I think that you may be a better fit culture-wise at one of these institutions anyway.
As for me, I have an opportunity to work at Google next semester though admittedly this program is through CMC. </p>
<p>You seemed to suggest the Pomona’s small alumni network is a disadvantage while in my experience, this has actually been of paramount importance for networking. If you attend the University of Texas, you can’t just call up a senior executive at Accenture because you went to school there. At Pomona College, you can, and you should. Alumni are almost always extremely helpful and extremely willing to offer you any leg up that is within their power.</p>
<p>For example, my friend got his job at Amazon through an alumni that sent an email to the CDO basically begging Pomona students to apply. Oh, I might also mention that the head of HR at Google is a Pomona alum; the head of Goldman Sachs for the San Francisco office is a Pomona alum. Pomona students don’t concentrate in one area so its almost impossible not to find someone who is working in your field of interest.</p>
<p>Hope you find this helpful.</p>
<p>Snuffles, would you mind posting or PMing me about your friend’s job at Amazon and your opportunity at Google? I’m intending on majoring in CS and Math, and I was just wondering what sort of specific opportunities might be available for someone like myself (I’m particularly interested in Artificial Intelligence). Thanks!</p>
<p>thanks for the info it really helps but
what do you mean by better fit culture-wise snuffles?</p>
<p>Pomona’s culture is centered around learning for the sake of learning, rather than practical learning for the purpose of getting a job, and if that is your goal, perhaps another school’s culture will be a better fit for you.</p>
<p>oh okay I got you</p>
<p>We don’t have a finance major. Try CMC.</p>
<p>The math department is, to put it simply, awesome. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Career-wise, probably one of the best places out there if you want to go into academia. For industry, it’s kind of hard to judge. Math majors seem to get the best salaries here after graduating, but many are double majors, often with economics.</p>
<p>I’m a CS major, and I like it here. It takes more drive to get internships, since there aren’t tons of recruiters flying in to talk to hundreds of CS majors. But if put the time in, you can get work at a Google or Facebook, as recent graduates have demonstrated.</p>
<p>To echo what was said above - where there’s a Pomona alum working at a company, more tend to follow, partially because our alumni like to help their own but more so (I like to think) because employers are really happy with the work that Pomona graduates do. I’m graduating this May with a major in Math and a minor in Econ, and I’m going to work at the Federal Reserve Board in D.C., following in the footsteps of quite a few recent Pomona grads.</p>
<p>In any case, Pomona’s name recognition is increasing rapidly, and will probably do so even more by the time you graduate.</p>
<p>One of my Pomona seniors fellow class members is a math/computer science major and he had multiple job offers. On the other side my son does not a lot of positive things to say about the Career Development Office. He has found the internships and jobs over the past four years on his own. The CDO just gave him website links he could have found by himself. The CDO has been helpful to some of his friends and is under relatively new management which might make a difference in the experience going forward.</p>
<p>I was wondering about the job/career picture for other majors. What is anyone’s experience with mentoring by faculty or staff at Pomona?</p>
<p>My son’s goal is grad school so I can only speak to that. All the faculty in his major and faculty at other Claremont Colleges have been more than helpful in helping him to that goal.</p>