<p>Hi, i'm a second year computer science major at UCR and I've been worrying about the job opportunity as a UCR student. Do you think there will be some job opportunities for computer science major at such low-ranked schools like UCR? I currently have a 3.357 GPA and planning to bring it up to 3.5+ this year.</p>
<p>i'm also thinking of planning to go to grad school if no job opportunities are given...either for Master's or MBA. Would you guys recommend that? Thanks =)</p>
<p>Local employers are likely to come to your school’s career center and recruit.</p>
<p>UCR is probably not high profile enough to attract traveling recruiters; you will likely have to be more aggressive in seeking out non-local companies to apply to, rather than waiting for them to come to the career center.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response ucbalumnus</p>
<p>So if I have high gpa + skills + work experience, do recruiters even care about what school I went to? Also, do grad schools care about what school I went to?</p>
<p>Do companies care what school you go to? Sure. Do grad schools? Of course. Is 3.5 a high GPA? Not particularly. Can a great student from a mediocre school get a job with a great company across the continental US? Absolutely.</p>
<p>3.5 is an above average GPA at almost every university in the US, other than the most highly grade inflated ones like Brown and Stanford.</p>
<p>Yes, there are some job opportunities especially with local employers who do not care about the rank of the school. I live in the area and work for a Fortune 500 company that employers graduates of UCR and Cal Poly Pomona. Granted, the area does not have that many tech companies so there will not be as many job openings for you in the immediate area.</p>
<p>what is the name of that company? And what are some of the tech companies that are located near my school?</p>
<p>I rather not say my company, but here is a list of local employers:</p>
<p>Environment System Research Institute (ESRI)
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division
Southern California Edison
Parsons Corporation
The Toro Company
Pepsi</p>
<p>Keep in mind that there are opportunities outside of tech companies, such as Kaiser Permanente, Loma Linda Medical Center, Farmer’s Insurance, etc. that need technical people too.</p>
<p>You’ll be ok, linoch. A low GPA is definitely a red flag for interviewers looking at your resume, but a 3.3 is fine and 3.5 is even better. And don’t worry too much about UCR’s rankings – it’s not all that important.</p>
<p>Keep your GPA up and try to take interesting classes that you can talk about on interviews (preferably ones with large projects that you can show or discuss). If you have some time, try joining an open source project. If you’re just another Joe with a CS degree it’ll be tougher to get a cool job, but if you’re a Joe with a CS degree who’s worked on lots of interesting projects and is passionate about what he does, you’ll be a much stronger candidate.</p>
<p>If you have no student loan debt, going to grad school is an OK option. However, I would advise against grad school if you can’t get it paid for. I am back in school now (MS program) after working as an engineer for a few years and I’m actually glad that I didn’t go directly to grad school after I graduated. I gained a lot of technical skill working as an engineer, and unlike some other grad students who have little or no industry experience, the topics that we discuss in school aren’t simply theoretical for me because I’ve actually had to deal with many of them in the real world. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that my employer reimburses my tuition. :)</p>
<p>Good luck, linoch.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses guys, I really appreciate it :)</p>
<p>Hey linoch,</p>
<p>I just graduated in June with a comp. engineering degree. Before I graduated I had inperson and phones interviews with microsoft, amazon, bloomberg, advent, justintv, and altera. I had no internships (mainly do to the fact I was a bio major for two years.), but what I did do was research. You should spend some time emailing professors asking for research opportunities. You should begin creating a resume now if you don’t have one so you can start applying for internships between oct. and march for this coming summer. If you don’t get an internship keep looking for research and apply again next summer for internships. Also as the previous posters have said find some side projects you can do on your own, what would be great is if you looked up certain companies you might want to work for and see what technologies they look for in a candidates resume. My cumulative GPA was a 3.14 and major GPA was a 3.4, none of those employers cared when I got to the interview stage. I also got a job before I graduated, so as long as you apply near and far you will have plenty of interviews. Good Luck!</p>
<p>-RickyB</p>