Hi lucky,

Typically engineering double-majoring with anything is near-impossible. If you're interested in math, why don't you do CS? It's more theoretical than SE while still giving the flexibility of taking software engineering options, and it's super easy to double major with a math major. You could also do a BMATH/CS degree rather than a BCS.

Software engineering is not "superior" to computer science by any means... keep that in mind. In fact, SE majors have less career flexibility.

So is software engineering=computer science-software engineering option?
I'll definitely consider it.
thanks

Update: I recently dropped co-op, so if you have any questions about that process (or why the heck I'd do such a thing), feel free to ask :)

There's always been something that's really bugged me about co-op. Surprisingly, it's not the bullcrap PD courses--I've always done fine with those. It's not the co-op streaming--I could change it, so it doesn't bother me. It's not working somewhere outside of my comfort zone, because while I did that and it sucked, you usually only have to do that once with co-op.

There are two main reasons:

1. You're paying $600 a term to use jobmine. TO USE JOBMINE. CECS is a bureaucratic giant that requires far less funding to provide the same effective level of service to students. There is an entire PD department that gets paid money to develop more crapty courses for undergrads to be forced to take.

You could argue that they are the sole interface with employers, but a far more minimal institution could do that. Basically, it's a bloated department of campus that charges me far more money than I'd like to pay it for minimal service. So it's not really worth a $600 convenience fee to make it easier for me to find jobs, especially if that's not too hard (which it shouldn't be after a work term).

For many students, they probably couldn't find work without jobmine, at least until their third/fourth years. That's fine. Those are the people who should be in co-op. It's there to get you comfortable with finding work.


2. CECS is flat-out unfair to students. They will *never* force an employer to take a co-op student. The employer can cancel the job in advance, choose to not rank the student, or even rank the student with an offer, get matched, change their minds and cancel the job.

But for students? If I look for research work outside of Jobmine, all the Jobmine jobs are required to take priority. If I get a number of offers because I've diligently been looking for work in all sorts of places, but some are outside of jobmine, I have to take the jobmine offer. I have no leverage to bargain over salary or benefits, and I get stuck with an inferior job, perhaps, due to co-op regulations.

My pure math advisor told me that at one point students could also choose to not rank employers. Those days are gone. I refuse to be treated like indentured labor when my skills have higher value than that. I felt taken advantage of in my last job (work far below my capability, yet stuck doing secretarial- and busy-work), and I don't want to get stuck there again.

I'm hoping to find work on campus this summer, whether it be with IST, research for a prof, a tutoring job with ISG, etc.. I plan on working at least 4 work terms before I graduate.


To those in co-op that are now unsure of things--it is very easy to see how you like it, and drop later. As long as you drop before your second work term, they won't give you much trouble for it. Especially recommended buzzwords are those such as "academic reasons/looking to go into academia". They won't give you any hassle so long as you claim this, because co-op is "not for everyone." And to those in regular that don't want to be, take comfort in that you're not much worse off, and have control of your life :)

The reason I'm doing PMATH/CS is because it gives me an immediate in to industry if I choose to pursue it--coding. And I write damn good code, so I'm not going to go without by any means. It's an application for my thought processes, if you will, and makes it easy to get employment doing interesting work if I choose not to go the research route.



I have half a mind to think that the HTML thing is another way of culling job candidates. After all, co-op was intended initially for technical majors only. If you can't spend the time to get a resume looking presentable on jobmine (hint hint: code it by hand), then the employer probably doesn't want you. :P

The scrapping of "new jobmine" was a disastrous waste of money.



This is only partially true. I neglected to mention this point. See, hundreds of people already apply for these jobs on jobmine, so you're really not being saved any competition. How you *can* distinguish yourself is showing up to the employer recruiting/info sessions. Make yourself look awesome and interested in the company, and you'll automatically get that extra consideration because you were willing to go above and beyond those others that just submitted a resume.

In fact, this is often enough to find work, no jobmine required :) It's the secret of a lot of non-co-ops that still succeed in industry. It's not like CECS blocks you from the information once you drop co-op!

You can compile LaTeX to HTML. It would certainly look better than the generated code you get from... say, MS Office. And seriously, hand-coding my resume only took about an hour <.< Though I had been doing some web development the whole summer.

Business cards are good, but make sure you bring your resume too! That's always really important. Printed on nice paper!

Nice paper, like letterhead, maybe with a UW logo or something printed on it. Something thicker with a warmer color than the conventional paper you're used to printing your assignments on.

The font thing is always an issue because fonts in a browser are dependent on what the user installs on the system. All fonts in a pdf document are contained inside the document, which is why they work no matter what system you're on. So it's highly unlikely that you'd be able to keep the nice fonts you use for LaTeX in an HTML document.

Page margins are not an HTML thing, but actually a CSS thing, and yes, they can be controlled; you can in fact actually set them for different media, including printed (so you don't have funny margins if you try to print the webpage).

You're not being minimal enough. I've actually seen employers post on OMGUW saying "If you use the PD1 resume, I will throw out your application. DO NOT USE THIS RESUME."

Basically, you need the following on a resume:

- purpose (why are you applying to the job? 1 or 2 sentences)
- skills summary
- education
- work experience
- volunteer experience (ONLY if you don't have at least 3 jobs to put on your resume)
- awards
- activities/interests

In that order, I might add. Things like special projects and relevant courses are things that you talk about in your interview, unless it was some crazy course (a grad course or something?) that you think will make your resume stand way out from the others.

Basically, it's ridiculous that PD1 expects you to have a 2-3 page resume when you have no work experience. A given resume should never be longer than 2 pages. Mine is about 1.5 I think? It should stand out and be brief! I know it's hard, but it distinguishes you from the pack :P

Also, I ought to note, margins don't really matter on a webpage, other than for aesthetics. :)

You should never apply for more than say, 15 jobs after you've gotten work experience. It's only the 50-job crapshoot on your first time around. Your situation sounds pretty typical of someone that CECS didn't give all the information to. :( Sucks to hear about the 22 interviews.

And of course, the thing aimango hasn't noted here (for non-UW students' reference) is that interviews take priority over EVERYTHING. If you have a class, you have to skip it. A midterm? You're required to skip it. Doesn't matter how mandatory the stuff is: if you're scheduled for an interview, that has to come first. You can try to reschedule with the other students being interviewed, but that doesn't always necessarily work out. And you cannot cancel interviews--it is forbidden. It would be like withdrawing an application from a job, which again, is not allowed.

I had a problem with my place of employment in the summer, and my field coordinator did not help me at all with it. Additionally, she never even bothered to meet with my supervisor, only with myself, and that contact was really needed in light of the problem that came up later. Just all-around bad performance on the part of CECS. :( So yeah, if you don't get co-op and you're a co-op hopeful... don't worry about it.

@g93:

1. Yes, resumes will be uploaded in .html and don't worry, the language is not too difficult to learn if you are just formatting a document. You just have to learn a bit of syntax for tables (optional), paragraphs, and/or style sheets (optional). It's way easier to learn than say... Scheme.

2. No, the employers do not decided on your schedule. It is a first come first serve system and if you want to re-schedule, you will need to contact the other interviewees and have them and yourself sign a form.

3. Job rankings in the first cycle come once a week, usually Tues or Thurs I think, and so if you accept your job in one ranking, you don't have to attend any other interviews that were not in your ranking. The second cycle is little more hectic, but still the same concept. If you accept a job offer, subsequent interviews will be cancelled by CECS.