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to be fair, nobody explicitly told me that gpa rules me out. but after i revealed my gpa, the youtube employee who reached out to me suggested that my resume wo

to be fair, nobody explicitly told me that gpa rules me out. but after i revealed my gpa, the youtube employee who reached out to me suggested that my resume would be discarded if my gpa was below 3.5, and even then, they unofficially shoot for 3.7. i only graduated in 2009, and as a self-taught programmer who graduated with a Psychology major, i have almost no training in computer science (i couldn't tell you what a bubble sort is; i find abelson and sussman totally uninteresting save for the box and pointer diagrams). but i did at least make it through real analysis and abstract algebra for fun and i do have a unique combinatoric proof of a summation identity to my name.

btilly 16y ago
The GPA comment refers to people being hired for a first job straight out of college. Get industry experience, and nobody will care what your GPA was, or whether you even have one. That said, you won't get through the Google interview without filling in some of your CS holes. You don't need to know what anything is called, but if you don't understand why quick sort and merge sort are efficient, you'll have trouble with the interviews. That said, if you made it through real analysis and algebra, then the CS stuff you need shouldn't be too hard for you to learn. Really. If your interests include math and CS, one fun place to start is trying to tackle Project Euler problems. While doing that, read a few books, and you should be good to go.
brown9-2 16y ago
Just apply. Try. It's worth it. The stuff about the GPA seems like a giant myth. I don't even remember my college GPA and I had a few rounds of interviews at GOOG.
nostrademons 16y ago
My GPA was 3.0 and I was hired without much of a problem. Had about 4-ish years of industry experience. It's the lack of formal CS that'll do you in...you have to know some of the theory to get past the interviews. They don't care how you learned it, but they care that you know it.

btilly 16y ago

The GPA comment refers to people being hired for a first job straight out of college. Get industry experience, and nobody will care what your GPA was, or whether you even have one. That said, you won't get through the Google interview without filling in some of your CS holes. You don't need to know what anything is called, but if you don't understand why quick sort and merge sort are efficient, you'll have trouble with the interviews. That said, if you made it through real analysis and algebra, then the CS stuff you need shouldn't be too hard for you to learn. Really. If your interests include math and CS, one fun place to start is trying to tackle Project Euler problems. While doing that, read a few books, and you should be good to go.

brown9-2 16y ago

Just apply. Try. It's worth it. The stuff about the GPA seems like a giant myth. I don't even remember my college GPA and I had a few rounds of interviews at GOOG.

nostrademons 16y ago

My GPA was 3.0 and I was hired without much of a problem. Had about 4-ish years of industry experience. It's the lack of formal CS that'll do you in...you have to know some of the theory to get past the interviews. They don't care how you learned it, but they care that you know it.