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Ask HN: Bad College to California, Any tips for jobs?

7 points| aperture | 13 years ago | reply

Hello HN! I cross posted this on reddit here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1fjmv2/from_bad_college_to_california_prep_work_needed/

tldr; Moving to California, fresh out of college. Advice on getting a job?

Full text is in the link, text character limit is imposed. Thank you for any comments!

11 comments

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[+] nairteashop|13 years ago|reply
Looks like you're graduating 2 years from now. That's plenty of time!

I'm in california and have been hiring devs for a long time. The one advice I have for you is this: you said your github is collecting cobwebs - fix that. Writing code and building applications is the one thing that will make you a better developer. Unfortunately this is a skill I find sorely lacking in most fresh grads (not their fault, CS curriculum focuses more on theory than on getting students to build stuff).

What should you build? Anything. Write an app to solve some annoyance you face everyday. Build an app using node because you think it's interesting technology. Create a simple blog engine and host it on AWS or Heroku. Whatever tickles your fancy and motivates you. It doesn't matter what it is, but it is VERY important that you actually finish each project and make sure it works without falling over every 5 minutes.

Language doesn't matter, but you should be good at one or preferably two "popular" languages. C, C++, Python, Ruby, Java, etc all count.

[+] aperture|13 years ago|reply
Most kids do have this issue, and I only find that they make one or two projects from school and that's about it. I already have a school project made up, but plan to also work on other projects (hopefully with other people). I'm fairly good with Java and Python, but I regularly try challenges on websites to improve my language design, readability, and uses to fix a specific problem.
[+] auctiontheory|13 years ago|reply
No specific software job tips, other than "build your portfolio on GitHub." Two thoughts:

First of all, you're thinking and planning and networking so far ahead that I already know you're going to do just fine. You have a winner's attitude.

Second, read Ask The Headhunter. It's not software-specific, but is the best job-hunting approach I've ever seen. Have used it with several tech companies.

No one can say what the job market will be in two years, but you're clearly moving in the right direction.

[+] aperture|13 years ago|reply
:) Build my portfolio I will try to do!

Thank you for the comment, I will check into "Ask the Headhunter". At the moment I am actually job hunting for the summer, and at the very least the reading may help with this as well.

[+] tagabek|13 years ago|reply
First off, what specifically do YOU want to be doing?

Let's say you haven't figured that one out just yet. If this is the case, I would suggest freelancing in the meantime.

You may find this recent thread useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5731198

[+] aperture|13 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, I didn't mention! I would like to do some application development, ideally I'd like to refactor some large business application, or deal with unix and linux system development. Which is why I don't really do much with the web. (side note: is this a bad path to take?)

Thank you for the thread link. Actually, the most respectable company in my area I met at the local tech meetup, and I managed to get an internship there (I had to leave, and wasn't paid, but that was what taught me about Sans, major networking, and esxi, which I previously never knew even existed).