Need Plan/Advice (CS student, grad: Spring 2012) to be sucessful

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I don't know yet what the situation is like in the job market, and I don't know what to expect before or after I graduate. I would like to find a job as a programmer or scientist or whatever, with the computer science degree I should get in Spring 2012. I'm confident I can ace just about all my CS classes, but I feel that might not be enough. I want to make sure that I can 100% obtain an entry level job before I graduate or when I graduate. This is my moment of opportunity to figure out how I can do all that I can with the 1.25 years I have left. I would really appreciate some and all advice I can get to make myself #1.</p>

<p>What would you guys suggest?</p>

2

<p>If you have all A’s then you shouldn’t be worried
If you want you could get an internship before you graduate</p>

3

<p>So acing all my CS classes should easily get me an internship?</p>

4

<p>yes unless you’re in a very low rated school, but even then it shouldn’t be too hard</p>

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<p>If you like to program, perhaps try and find some small jobs or work around campus in helping people with programs/websites. If you’re good enough, you can try contributing to an open source project. These are good things to put on your resume.</p>

6

<p>Yeah, thanks. That will be an important part of my plan…</p>

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<p>Are the answers the same for computer engineering?</p>

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<p>They can help you get a job in software engineering, though I doubt it will help much with the hardware side. I’m not certain for Comp.E, but it seems like your best bets are to get internships for CE’s and EE’s, though knowing how to program well can never hurt.</p>

9

<p>As others have mentioned, try to get the best jobs or internships you can this summer.</p>

<p>You may have to be aggressive at finding companies to apply to, since CSU LA (where you mentioned that you are at elsewhere) is not the first place that out of area employers visit when they come to the area (their primary targets are UCLA and USC).</p>

<p>Based on the [CSU</a> LA CS course descriptions](<a href=“http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/ecst/cs/courses.php]CSU”>Lower Division Courses | Cal State LA), it looks like the most important courses for concepts widely used in industry software development jobs are 312, 337, 370, 437, 440, 447, 470, 422, 480, 420.</p>

<p>In the other thread, you also mentioned consideration of graduate school to do a master’s degree. If you decide to apply to graduate school, consider SJSU and UCSC as well as the more obvious choices, due to their proximity to “Silicon Valley” computer companies.</p>

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<p>Start building a social network. Approach your professors and ask them for any internship leads or industry connections; talk to your classmates and ask them for any information; go to career services and ask them to help you to craft a r</p>

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<p>Wow, a lot of good points and info here so far… thanks.</p>

<p>@ucb, thanks for pointing that out…</p>

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<p>I’ve been on Dice.com asking for advice, as well. They have been claiming that the CS job market is totally grim, and it seems that they are saying that finding work is almost impossible. Is this true? Or is it not impossible? Maybe I just need to up my chances by working hard and taking up everyone’s advice on these forums?</p>

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<p>The intelligent approach is to search for objective, factual evidence. Find authoritative, non-biased (least biased) sources. Call employers of CS graduates (big and small) and ask them if they are hiring, what kind of skills they might be looking for, etc.</p>

<p>You’re not likely to find what you’re looking for on these or any other online forums. Be proactive and contact people.</p>

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<p>Yeah, thanks. I agree. I think there are a lot of people with great skills finding it extremely difficult to find work, and could of been looking for a long time. But I don’t think it’s impossible. If it is nearly impossible, then that is news for me.</p>

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<p>Lol. Stay away from dice. Its like if you got all the internet ■■■■■■ together in one room you would have the dice forums.</p>

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<p>What makes you say that, Inmotion12?</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>There may be survivorship bias here. People who have been on dice.com for a while are probably the least successful job seekers, so their experiences will tend toward the grim and depressing side. Those who have found jobs are less likely to be there.</p>

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<p>There may be? I wish I could find out what the “facts” are… I might try my best to stick with CS, but I am not sure right now… I am going to speak to the CS dept chair ASAP about this to find out what’s the best major/career to pursue. Thanks…</p>

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<p>So what do you guys think are the percentage of competent/qualified job seekers obtaining employment? And how long does it usually take for these job seekers?</p>

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<p>Don’t be so scared. The guys on dice have a very negative attitude which feeds on itself and makes it very hard for them to get out of the ruts that they’re in. The positive people are out there actually making stuff happen for themselves while these guys spend all day on dice looking for pity and trying to make others as miserable as they are. </p>

<p>Computer science is still a very good major. The unemployment rates for the technology sector are comparable to business, finance, engineering, etc…</p>

<p>Out of every 100 people looking for a job in the technology sector over 95 of them are successfully employed. That’s a FACT, not the opinion of some loser living in his mom’s basement crying about the fact that monkey programming jobs are being outsourced.</p>