<p>Software Engineering and Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>BCEagle-Do you realize how many of us are quietly rooting for your kid to get a job?!!!</p>
<p>This is better than a reality show. I tune in everyday just to find out if he got a job yet. I feel like I should have a toast when he does get a job.</p>
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<p>It’s a shame that these very smart people at such very desirable companies can’t figure out a way to interview candidates more effectively.</p>
<p>Any CS candidate should have ‘learned how to learn’, and learning content from a single course shouldn’t take a well-qualified candidate all that long. Any company hiring such candidates should expect a learning curve, a period of training. So I wonder this - does the company think it can hire the best minds plus the exact course work/experience they want - is the job market that bad? - or are they just plain too stupid or lazy to figure out who has the best minds, and fall back on looking for a very specific course history?</p>
<p>/rant.</p>
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<p>No. I originally just wanted to provide a view into the process but it has taken longer than I had expected. But thanks for the wishes.</p>
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<p>Well, the format means that you can tune in whenever you want to. It feels like slow motion on the phone interviews followed by the in-person interviews. I suppose that I now feel what it’s like to be on the other side. I can imagine tens of thousands of other kids going through similar stuff.</p>
<p>BTW, I feel the same way with the other story threads that go on here. The Dual-Enrollment thread had a nice ending as have many others.</p>
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<p>This particular job is only a three-month internship so they wouldn’t have a of time
to bring someone up to speed. From what I can tell, the work involves creating
device drivers from a large number of operating systems/hardware architectures
to devices that are hot in the marketplace right now (I’m being deliberately vague).
It’s an area that receives a lot of corporate IT money and getting a foot in the door,
even if just a three-month internship, could be very helpful for a career. There are
a lot of very experienced engineers trying to get into this company too.</p>
<p>The place where I work (and other top companies with a ton of cash and strong
profits) hire good graduates and train them for six to nine months and then they
become productive. We can well afford the investment and this kind of investment
pays off.</p>
<p>I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t really get that upset at companies that don’t
want to train - they apparently have their cost and time pressures to labor under. I
feel that they will eventually have to go back to the mode where they train as there
are just not enough tech people out there that have skill-set matches to fill the open
tech jobs out there.</p>
<p>BTW, his interviews have been interesting to me as they have given me additional insight into the tech market and what companies are doing and what they are trying to do. This sometimes generates investment opportunities for me. You can get a feel for how well a company is doing by how aggressively they are hiring or if they are not hiring at all. I actually learned a great deal about a few very big companies from his interview. The information from his interview was actually tradeable (I realized this in hindsight).</p>
<p>I’m now officially considering an MA in educational leadership in student affairs, if I could get the financial aid to work. The program is pretty much tailor made for my interests and would qualify me for the kinds of jobs I want.</p>
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<p>I know quite a few colleagues with educational leadership degrees. Be forewarned that the road to the top in student affairs is long, winding, and low paid.</p>
<p>I tune in daily to follow the saga and see whether BCEagleSon has gotten the job yet - and I still haven’t really figured out whether it’s a career job post graduation or a summer position/internship, lol. Apparently, I can tell the player(s) without a program, but I don’t know what the game is :D!</p>
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<p>I have it worse than jmmom-- I’m watching the game in a foreign language with no subtitles!</p>
<p>There are four positions in play right now: a summer internship, a 6-month coop, a full-time permanent job and a contract to hire job that pays quite well. He just finished a semester of grad school so he could always just go back to school in the fall but he’s interested in working too.</p>
<p>This morning, I found out that the manager at the coop job wants more candidates before doing in-person interviews. Perhaps there’s a shortage of candidates? They’ve been advertising the position(s) since last fall I believe. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.</p>
<p>I was going to post a snippet to the NYT article out this morning: Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling</p>
<p>Now evidence is emerging that the damage wrought by the sour economy is more widespread than just a few careers led astray or postponed. Even for college graduates — the people who were most protected from the slings and arrows of recession — the outlook is rather bleak.</p>
<p>Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is “worth it” after all. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html</a></p>
<p>But I see that there’s a new topic on it already. I’ll just post the snippet and link here for those.</p>
<p>The new unemployment claims numbers are due out at 8:30 AM EST today - I expect them to still be over 400K (which isn’t good). I also read that the Fed is divided on raising interest rates. Monetary policy has been very, very easy for a long time and we’re seeing inflation in gas and food prices. Tightening now would probably reduce those prices but the concern is that it could also re-tank the economy.</p>
<p>I am of belief to raise rates, realizing the economy may have another setback…easy money is propping up the stock market,and Big Ben is doing so to make us all feel more wealthy/comfortable in spending,so as to make the economy take off on its own…in the meantime,retirees on fixed income are getting pummeled vis-a-vie low returns on savings,food and fuel prices are soaring,hurting the lower and middle class…let nature take its course…</p>
<p>Weekly new unemployment claims dropped to 409,000 which is good - not good enough but better than the last four weeks.</p>
<p>In general, the Fed likes to try to stay out of making changes in the presidential election season so as to appear to remain apolitical so there isn’t a huge amount of time to raise rates if they want to remain true to that historical approach.</p>
<p>I do believe that there would be a huge political outcry if rates were raised now unless there was some language stating that the target would be modest (say 1%). I don’t really see how 1% rates are going to help seniors though. Higher rates could cause borrowing cost problems for the Treasury too.</p>
<p>My wife mentioned him working in Singapore where there is a severe labor shortage. It would probably mean her moving there with him and living in our place over there. I think that I’d stay here as my job is here so it would mean running split households on opposite ends of the earth. I will do a little investigation in to how hot the job market is over there in a week or two if nothing current pans out.</p>
<p>UPDATE: Thought I would update people since I have vented here and got great advice. D got an internship today. In her major (mechanical engineering) in the town she goes to college in.</p>
<p>We thought this might not happen but she kept plugging away and applying for jobs. We are so happy. The best part may be that she has an apartment in her college town that is already paid for this summer and she doesn’t have to find somewhere else to live.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for all your advice and encouragement. It was really helpful.</p>
<p>That’s what’s needed in the current environment and I’m sure that persistence will pay off in other ways down the road.</p>
<p>lol, Vitrac. And thanks for the clarification, BC (I think it was totally in English 
).</p>
<p>Well my DS has found himself it a bit of a scheduling nightmare. He is taking 2 classes with labs this summer (scheduled at inconvenient times breaking up the day, but no room in other sections) at our local flagship Tech school (necessary to keep him on track for graduation this year) and now has 2 internships, one in Chem E (32hrs/wk) and one in clinical research trials (he has worked with these folks before). These are all in different parts of town and trying to do it all is impossible. He knows the Chem E internship is a prize, but he isn’t sure he will have the time they want, and the distance between the locations and the traffic involved is not going to help matters. He of course wants/needs to do well hin his classes too. I thought it was a nice problem to have… but I am not so sure…
Did I mention his laptop fell off the top bunk in the frat he is staying in for the summer 2 nights ago? Its toast…</p>
<p>:eek: Sounds like time to prioritize and quit a few things… either that, or give up sleeping and other non-essentials! ;)</p>
<p>Even if there were enough hours in the day, which there aren’t, he is pretty sure he can’t afford the gas to do all this driving!</p>
<p>He’s going to need a vacation by the time Fall semester starts. How will he fit even one internship into that schedule?</p>