5 ms·

Besides school, what should I be focusing on right now? (CIS Student, 2nd year)

6 points by EvanZ 12y ago

I'm currently going for an AS in Computer Information Systems at my local community college and plan on transferring to either RPI or RIT (my community college has excellent articulation agreements) in 2015 to continue on for my BS. I'm currently looking into what is necessary for an internship over the summer of 2015 and am working on a few personal projects (two sites and a mobile game) as well as learning and getting solid grades in class. What should be my focus? I'm looking for a general outline by those who have been in a similar position to mine (I imagine there are at least a few here on HN.) My main concern is getting to graduation and realizing that I've neglected a critical aspect that was necessary for all job seekers. Thanks in advance!

dalke 12y ago
Networking is important. I know many people whose first jobs were because of schoolmates. How to network is different for different schools; it can mean club involvement (eg, the local ACM or Linux chapter), or it can mean working on a local university research project which hires a lot of students.
- EvanZ 12y ago
  This was very helpful, thanks! There are not any research projects going on at my college that I know of, but there are one or two viable clubs at the CC and I'll take the initiative and look into joining them.
faet 12y ago
Internships and portfolio. Setup a website that goes over projects you've done in school or personal projects. I got my last job because my portfolio website looked good and I had some past projects that 'showed' stuff on my resume. Most other people just had "I know c#". I had a project I could show off/describe.
- UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
  Perfect answer. A free GitHub site with some Open Source projects is also a nice inexpensive option for a portfolio. But these days portfolios for programmers seems like a "must have." I'm surprised more colleges aren't helping students put them together.
  - EvanZ 12y ago
    Thanks for the info, is there any particular tutorial/guide that you would recommend for me to really get a solid grip on Git and Version Control?
- EvanZ 12y ago
  Thanks for the info! I have a few projects completed already (4 games in AS3 and Haxe and one site) and am looking at a few open source projects that interest me. If you don't mind, what are the best websites/methods for obtaining quality internships?
  - faet 12y ago
    Probably school or connections. I got my first internship via a personal connection. My wife and old roommate got theirs from school. Schools will sometimes have job fairs, or councilor/advisor have some.
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
This might get a bit long - I am trying to get a lot of this sorted out myself but some thoughts 1. University, certainly the good ones, have two goals - to grow the next generation of Professsors whose research will give multiple orders of magnitude payback to society, and to grow more rounded, more stable highly trained "future leaders". It's still a fairly reasonable approach, and I would strongly advise you to stick with the opportunity to grow and experience more as a young human than you will get almost any other time. So, do work hard, but also sleep around, take time to travel cheaply in the long holidays, meet interesting people not because they might be useful in your future career, but because they are interesting. Sleep with some of them ! 2. Portfolios and networking - it's a bit blah! I would recommend that you do two things - experiment with different languages, build interpreters or compilers (start with a simple text markdown, build you own DSL) and just as importantly contribute to some open source projects - get your hands dirty with documentation, test frameworks, source code screw ups and bug triages. If you want to impress me with your just out of college CV then proving you can work well with other professional developers, can put a decent commit together and not piss off my senior leads is useful, and demonstrating that you can look square at the trade offs with functional and OO, what makes life hard when building an interpreter and knowing how to go from AST back to source code Well that will get you the interview at least Below is a long email / blog-post-to-be that was in response to a similar question from a Greek graduate (and temporary taxi driver) (Ok that's too long for HN submit form ... It will get rewritten and posted somewhere - but really - work hard, work with other people, work on gettin breadth of experience and why clever people have not yet settled on one language - and don't forget to meet interesting people and sleep with them (now my favourite phrase of the day)
- EvanZ 12y ago
  Thanks for taking your time to right out such a helpful and thorough comment. As far as point one goes, I'm definitely doing a few of those things and plan on travelling a bit too. Number two is helpful, as I hadn't really thought about building any compilers or interpreters. Could you PM me the blog post if possible? I'm not sure if HN has this capability. If not, then I'll have my email in my profile. Thanks a ton!
JSeymourATL 12y ago
> My main concern is getting to graduation and realizing that I've neglected a critical aspect that was necessary for all job seekers. Search Indeed.com for demanding 'entry-level' positions requiring CIS backgrounds. Note the typical requirements/experience/qualifications that employers are looking for. Use that as your personal education & training road map. Here's an example> https://university-crowehorwath.icims.com/jobs/8577/consultant---university-entry-level---consulting-information-security/job https://university-crowehorwath.icims.com/jobs/8577/consulta...
- EvanZ 12y ago
  Thanks for the link!

6 points by EvanZ 12y ago

dalke 12y ago

Networking is important. I know many people whose first jobs were because of schoolmates. How to network is different for different schools; it can mean club involvement (eg, the local ACM or Linux chapter), or it can mean working on a local university research project which hires a lot of students.

EvanZ 12y ago
This was very helpful, thanks! There are not any research projects going on at my college that I know of, but there are one or two viable clubs at the CC and I'll take the initiative and look into joining them.

faet 12y ago

Internships and portfolio. Setup a website that goes over projects you've done in school or personal projects. I got my last job because my portfolio website looked good and I had some past projects that 'showed' stuff on my resume. Most other people just had "I know c#". I had a project I could show off/describe.

UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
Perfect answer. A free GitHub site with some Open Source projects is also a nice inexpensive option for a portfolio. But these days portfolios for programmers seems like a "must have." I'm surprised more colleges aren't helping students put them together.
- EvanZ 12y ago
  Thanks for the info, is there any particular tutorial/guide that you would recommend for me to really get a solid grip on Git and Version Control?
EvanZ 12y ago
Thanks for the info! I have a few projects completed already (4 games in AS3 and Haxe and one site) and am looking at a few open source projects that interest me. If you don't mind, what are the best websites/methods for obtaining quality internships?
- faet 12y ago
  Probably school or connections. I got my first internship via a personal connection. My wife and old roommate got theirs from school. Schools will sometimes have job fairs, or councilor/advisor have some.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

This might get a bit long - I am trying to get a lot of this sorted out myself but some thoughts 1. University, certainly the good ones, have two goals - to grow the next generation of Professsors whose research will give multiple orders of magnitude payback to society, and to grow more rounded, more stable highly trained "future leaders". It's still a fairly reasonable approach, and I would strongly advise you to stick with the opportunity to grow and experience more as a young human than you will get almost any other time. So, do work hard, but also sleep around, take time to travel cheaply in the long holidays, meet interesting people not because they might be useful in your future career, but because they are interesting. Sleep with some of them ! 2. Portfolios and networking - it's a bit blah! I would recommend that you do two things - experiment with different languages, build interpreters or compilers (start with a simple text markdown, build you own DSL) and just as importantly contribute to some open source projects - get your hands dirty with documentation, test frameworks, source code screw ups and bug triages. If you want to impress me with your just out of college CV then proving you can work well with other professional developers, can put a decent commit together and not piss off my senior leads is useful, and demonstrating that you can look square at the trade offs with functional and OO, what makes life hard when building an interpreter and knowing how to go from AST back to source code Well that will get you the interview at least Below is a long email / blog-post-to-be that was in response to a similar question from a Greek graduate (and temporary taxi driver) (Ok that's too long for HN submit form ... It will get rewritten and posted somewhere - but really - work hard, work with other people, work on gettin breadth of experience and why clever people have not yet settled on one language - and don't forget to meet interesting people and sleep with them (now my favourite phrase of the day)

EvanZ 12y ago
Thanks for taking your time to right out such a helpful and thorough comment. As far as point one goes, I'm definitely doing a few of those things and plan on travelling a bit too. Number two is helpful, as I hadn't really thought about building any compilers or interpreters. Could you PM me the blog post if possible? I'm not sure if HN has this capability. If not, then I'll have my email in my profile. Thanks a ton!

JSeymourATL 12y ago

> My main concern is getting to graduation and realizing that I've neglected a critical aspect that was necessary for all job seekers. Search Indeed.com for demanding 'entry-level' positions requiring CIS backgrounds. Note the typical requirements/experience/qualifications that employers are looking for. Use that as your personal education & training road map. Here's an example> https://university-crowehorwath.icims.com/jobs/8577/consultant---university-entry-level---consulting-information-security/job https://university-crowehorwath.icims.com/jobs/8577/consulta...

EvanZ 12y ago
Thanks for the link!