<p>I've been roaming around this forum for a while and decided to ask you guys this.</p>
<p>I'm at University of Michigan-Dearborn and it's terrible here. The school only brags about its UM brand name and doesn't concentrate on out-of-state employment recruiting. I tried transferring to the more prestigious Ann Arbor campus but was rejected. </p>
<p>Anyway, I went on UMD's website and saw that 90% of students stay here in Michigan, getting stuck working for the Big 3. As a CS major, I want OUT. I want to move to California. LA, San Diego, Bay area, just anywhere in California. And I want to work for a Silicon Valley firm (Google, Cisco, Qualcomm, Intel). I have a 3.5 GPA in CS right now (higher than my peers).</p>
<p>Please, help me out. Give me advice or a strategy on getting that Silicon Valley job.</p>
<p>The big well known companies have web sites that you probably know. You should be able to find their employment/jobs/careers section and apply there.</p>
<p>For smaller, less well known companies, you need to look somewhat harder. Consider the following sources for company names:</p>
<ul>
<li>Career center reports of schools that list graduates’ employers (e.g. Berkeley, San Jose State, Cal Poly SLO, MIT, CMU, Virginia Tech). Most will show a strong bias toward local employment.</li>
<li>Finance and investing web sites, in which you can look up companies in a given industry (e.g. computer industry, electronics industry, etc.). This will be limited to companies with publicly traded stock.</li>
</ul>
<p>From the company names, you can find their web sites and apply to them if they are interesting to you.</p>
<p>What is wrong with a CS job in an automotive context? Note that one of the three American car companies is based near Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>1) Working at one of the so-called top Silicon Valley firms does not determine an engineer’s career path. There is more than just “Silicon Valley”</p>
<p>2) Even in Silicon Valley, there are more companies than just Google, Cisco, Qualcomm and Intel.</p>
<p>There is more to a career than just to have a conversation piece to say “I work here”. There are companies that are not as known but will pay just as much money and specialize in the same technologies as the more known companies.</p>
<p>Now, if your heart is set in Silicon Valley, the solution is quite simple, You need to either network and/or find other ways for Google, Cisco, Qualcomm, Intel and any other company within the Silicon Valley zipcode to get your resume. I guess your FIRST task is to find out HR information for all the companies in Silicon Valley.</p>
You’re haven’t done much research apparently. The living standards are higher in Silicon Valley, which is why you would make more there than at a company in a place with lower living standards. </p>
<p>Also, there’s companies that pay more than all the ones you listed.</p>
<p>What are the names of those companies? Also, is it rare to work in California being from my state school?</p>
<p>I’m aware that the COL in California is high, thus bringing up wages. $90,000/year won’t go very far in the bay area. I’d consider $150,000 high paying in the bay area. Though, it’s not all about the money; I think California is a very beautiful state and would like to live there instead of Michigan.</p>
<p>There is a definite local bias in any area, because (a) convenience of recruiting at local schools, and (b) many people want to work in the same area that they grew up or attended school. Yes, the local schools to Silicon Valley include Stanford and Berkeley, but there are many alumni from less known (outside the area) local schools like SJSU, UCD, UCSC, and SCU working in the area.</p>
<p>Also, many relocate after some years of experience elsewhere.</p>
<p>Employers in the Bay Area want top talent. Before you worry about pay and prestige, you should become a better programmer and have stronger academic credentials. </p>
<p>If you can’t even get into Michigan, then you probably have a long way to go.</p>
<p>So it would be a long shot… but the following would help:
Get some internship experience where you can in CS and do really well at it.
Get GREAT grades in your current program. Pretty much all As if you even would want to be considered.
Not sure what year you are, but if you could intern after freshman & sophomore year and gain some experience, apply for internships at those companies summer after your junior year.</p>
<p>Question: What happens to the CS students who graduate from no-name colleges, get mediocre grades (<3.5), and are unable to get internships from prestigious companies? I’m a sophomore trying to get internships at companies like Texas Instruments and IBM, but it seems that most of the kids from top unis get the offers. I’m sort of in a dead end situation.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize what college you went to would impact your future career.</p>
<p>1) In CS, school name does not matter.
2) In CS, ABET accreditation does not matter.
3) There are many more companies than just Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>Each software engineer’s satisfaction level is different. Some engineers want their career to move through the best-known companies. Some care that the money is the same (because there many lesser-known companies that pay just as high salaries). Some engineers value research. </p>
<p>Remember, this is a message board and every poster will have different experiences.</p>
<p>Me?..I did not have AP credits. I never got an internship during college (GPA was flat average). My undergrad alma-mater (Michigan State Univ) ranks somewhere between 50-70 in CS. Hell, I was not even a pure CS major (I was a Math major with a “super minor” in CS)…and I was still hired right out of school by Westinghouse in Pittsburgh (back when it was a huge company). My last 9 years is being a contractor for the National Security Agency.</p>
<p>I do agree that CS is a “what have you done for me lately” industry. Once you get some work experience, even in Michigan, you can likely get a company in California to hire you after a couple of years. You may not end up at one of the tippy top companies, but if you build some skills on your resume and have good references, you could eventually make the move. You might have an easier time finding work locally to start with (because companies will be interviewing at your school), but eventually you can make the move.</p>
<p>Do things that get you into the realm of big tech companies. Programming competitions, research, hackathons, etc. Ex: Facebook had a hackthon recently that one of my friends placed (in regionals) so got flown out to Menlo Park.</p>
<p>Take any job that you can get for after sophomore year. Try to get a research grant if no job, but those are competitive too so ask profs at your college if they need anyone or if there is a team you can join. My kid was able to hook up a paid summer with a prof and also then had a couple of REU type experiences. A lot of CS research is very practical. Then after you have done something sophomore summer, you have a chance of getting a better internship after jr year. Work on open source projects to strengthen your resume.</p>