Week of 10 Feb
What did you do this past week?
At the start of the week, I completed Collatz. Then, what I expected to be the real chore of the week was Career Fair. I like to think of the Career Fair as a way to test that I’m marketing myself correctly judging by the recruiters’ interest in me, and since I came late, I couldn’t talk to as many as I would have liked, but overall, it was fine. Apart from that, in regards to the website, while we didn’t officially submit the proposal, I think our group has come up with a decent idea and found useful APIs, and we plan to submit tomorrow.
What’s in your way?
I didn’t reach out to my group sooner because I was distracted by Career Fair, which slowed down our idea submission. In addition, exams are starting, so I was more focused on that. Basically, I was prioritizing other work over the website, which I hope doesn’t bite us in the back later.
What will you do next week?
I’ve got a quiz which I honestly don’t know if it will be easy or hard for a class that I was taking as a blow-off foreign culture credit, so I’m distracted memorising for that until Tuesday. After that, my biggest task is the initial website. I think I want to assign tasks for our group so that 3 groups of 2 people can work on things in pairs since I’m pretty sure CATME put us together only because we didn’t explicitly ban weekends, even though none of us wants to work then.
What was your experience of Project #1: Collatz (the problem, the overkill requirements of submission, etc.)?
Nothing really. Like I mentioned before, I took OOP, so I was familiar with Collatz. I had headaches with writing a different solution and still took half the time because the hardest thing with the first project is getting used to Gitlab, Docker, etc. Honestly, I’m more surprised at the next assignment. Making a static website without teaching us anything in class isn’t bad, but the assigned time feels unnecessarily small. Looking at the class schedule, it makes a lot more sense to me to give Collatz in the first week of classes, making it due a week earlier and then having an extra week for this project.
What made you happy this week?
What made me happy was that Career Fair went well for me. I was worried that I no one would be interested in me, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. Some were very matter-of-fact “Senior? Fill this out”, but I was able to have long conversations with a few, so I’m satisfied. I was worried that December grads wouldn’t have too many companies, but it seemed more like a situation of “We look for December grads in September” rather than non-interest entirely.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
For other people who are going to graduate in December instead of May and are confused when to start job hunting, it looks like there’s a decent split in when companies are hiring. Some hire a year in advance, while some hire only the semester before. I recommend going to the Spring Career Fair of your Senior year to get used to what companies are looking for in you, and networking with those that will be there in the Fall, just in case you don’t get an offer in the Spring.
