#Rising senior

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

brave zephyr
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aware nothing is ever guaranteed, but im 99% certain

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but i don't want to cruise for a year bc of it

pulsar crypt
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@brave zephyr how did uu get garmin

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they rejected me with google and disney on res

lofty tundra
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yeah career fairs are goated, wish my uni had more decent companies show up to ours, and the ones that do arent even hiring sometimes 😭

I'd say you should apply to co-ops, i personally do like 2-3 leetcode every other day, the main grind is just making cool stuff (working on a hobby site themed around a game i like).

This is just my opinion but I think there's like a base level of proficiency that a lot of students meet, and afrer that it becomes team fit. I think just being a person outside of being a student is more helpful than being the nth kid with 'AI B2B SaaS' founder or equivalent project. You have experience making useful software, I'd just lean into that more :)

pulsar crypt
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oh yea as always

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connections are always better

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youre looking good gng i hope you get that return offer

lofty tundra
pulsar crypt
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idk i use garmin

lofty tundra
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i know theyre good but from most people ive met w faang experience, they tend to aim for like big tech or promising startup

pulsar crypt
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yea its chill im at pltr rn

lofty tundra
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oh nice, im looking at them for newgrad, how you liking it?

pulsar crypt
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its pretty good

lofty tundra
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im not saying stop doing leetcode, i just think passively applying is a decent spend of time when youre not full time. also there are repositories with constantly updating roles, i can send a link if you havent seen them

brave zephyr
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super lucky to have gotten something so fast, but at the same time i have like negative interview experience and don't know the general flow of recruiting lol

pulsar crypt
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do u go to a school in missouri

brave zephyr
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no sir

pulsar crypt
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or kansa

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oh ok

lofty tundra
brave zephyr
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im east coast

pulsar crypt
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cuz ik garmin hq is in kansas right

lofty tundra
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internships and newgrad repo

brave zephyr
lofty tundra
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theres also dedicated ones for quant/ML

brave zephyr
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im not tryna live in kansas though

pulsar crypt
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damn my career fairs suck

lofty tundra
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yeah fr lol

pulsar crypt
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best we had was united airlines

lofty tundra
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my school provides nothing

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LOL we had delta

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ey we got faang tho, it all works out

pulsar crypt
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yea i feel like we can def get people idk why we have a bunch of bums

brave zephyr
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well it seems like you've done fine w/o career fairs lol

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thank you for the link btw!

lofty tundra
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im lowk trying to make that change for my uni, like we have great companies a bridge away from us (Google, Amazon, etc.)

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its not that much work to get like ONE recruiter over every so often

pulsar crypt
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fr

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you would expect a t10 school to have good companies there

lofty tundra
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If you're trying to get easy plugs Echo, I'd also look into being an ambassador or such for like Adobe, Simplify, ADPList, etc

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really easy way to get connected, it got me my first experience which for sure helped me get into big tech

lofty tundra
brave zephyr
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ngl i forgot my discord name was echo and i thought you were referencing those amazon echo plugs or smthing

lofty tundra
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actually we're T60 ig

pulsar crypt
brave zephyr
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lowk that sounds kinda intimidating lol, but i'll def look into it

lofty tundra
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we're private so that might be it. ik like purdue gets a lot of attention

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the purdue interns at my last job all apparently got it through a career

pulsar crypt
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yea the best way to get stuff is referrals and career fairs

lofty tundra
brave zephyr
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would yall happen to know how much weight amazon ref. carries?

lofty tundra
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i do stuff for adplist, i just order pizzas and have a speaker panel event, we had like Google Meta and OpenAI last time

brave zephyr
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i happen to know someone from running who works there rn

lofty tundra
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ref at amazon means nothing

brave zephyr
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nice lol

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thanks for giving it blunt

lofty tundra
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(it was my last internship, my manager specifically denied anyone with a ref)

pulsar crypt
brave zephyr
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that's crazy lmao

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i won't be hopeful for anything then

lofty tundra
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that said, one of the other interns dads is an L9

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so ref or not they for sure knew that

pulsar crypt
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i got pltr bc some swe lead referred me

lofty tundra
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eh, amazons technical is the easiest of FAANG with exception of like maybe Apple

brave zephyr
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would assume referal cred also changes depending on who it is

lofty tundra
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tryna hook me up??

pulsar crypt
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lmao bro idek him

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it was such a goofy connection

lofty tundra
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yeah absolutely but it can get you an interview tops

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ref wont get you hired at amazon

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id just write out stories about work you've done aligned to leadership principles

brave zephyr
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gotcha yeah, def makes sense

lofty tundra
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it was like 2 medium DSAs and a graph problem cause we had time

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light asl

brave zephyr
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jesus. yall are both sweaty

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i envy yall

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how much lc prep would you say is realistic? i was going to knock out neetcode150, maybe 250, and just stop there

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also any specific advice on resume? 😭 i do appreciate all the general feedback

pulsar crypt
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and then if youre applying to places with system design

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and if you really want to work somewhere try to get a connection unless its big tech then it doesn't really make a difference

lofty tundra
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tbh i dont think i have over 100 leetcode yet, id just focus on patterns instead of problems

brave zephyr
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gotcha okay. yeah i think the general plan was just to be dsa ready, then do specific prep for companies as i need to

lofty tundra
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sounds like a good plan yeah

pulsar crypt
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i think i only have like 50 lcs

brave zephyr
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maybe im overdoing it lopl

lofty tundra
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i think people live and die by the leetcode grind but it really isnt that srs

brave zephyr
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idk i mean i enjoy it enough to grind it out just for the summer

pulsar crypt
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yea youre locked in

lofty tundra
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its not a bad thing, just dont feel pressured

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if youre enjoying it and feel like youre learning no need to stop

brave zephyr
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grind time

lofty tundra
brave zephyr
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last question, since i have your attention. what would be the best thing for me to do for my last year

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realistically

lofty tundra
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are you targeting swe, ai/ml or like quant or something

brave zephyr
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probably just swe. i think i enjoy that the most

pulsar crypt
brave zephyr
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yeah that's lowk kinda cool

lofty tundra
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  • work on a large-scale project that gets users/revenue (both if possible). you can do it through a club, but doing it solo or w/ a small group is ideal to show autonomy
  • reach out to recruiters and get a real network going
  • try to get a leadership position related to tech, they love people who build for other students
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if you're lacking experience in distributed systems or cloud (you are) try to do research in them (or just emphasize them in your project), i'll be at a lab this fall just for the experience and the research paper

brave zephyr
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i think that aligns pretty well with my "coop at probably mid company vs build something cool" dilemma i've been having, so appreciate the insight

lofty tundra
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depending on your definition of "mid company" id still lean towards a co-op assuming it doesnt delay your grad if youre trying to avoid that

brave zephyr
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i've only recently started to get exposure to distributed systems at work, which has been super cool. def gonna see if theres any research opportunities at uni

lofty tundra
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experience > solo project for the most part unless you get assigned menial tasks during the internship

brave zephyr
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so im not really betting on it

terse wagon
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research >>> anything that isn’t big tech/quant/unicorn

brave zephyr
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don't want to grad late just bc i don't want to potentially lose my RO lol

lofty tundra
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^ if you can get research id do it while taking classes. if its a solo project vs. a co-op, id do everything you can to take the co-op and not delay grad at the same time

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if you could keep the same grad by doing a summer semester that would be worth it

brave zephyr
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didn't even consider that tbh... i'll do my research

lofty tundra
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research as an undergrad is highly valued, and is a prereq for like all ai/ml and most unicorns/hypergrowth companies

brave zephyr
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just to be on the same page, research as in, research in uni under a prof kinda thing right

terse wagon
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particularly getting published in a reputable journal

lofty tundra
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yeah, ideally with a paper

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what raymond said

brave zephyr
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hmm okay

lofty tundra
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if you can go to a conference that would be absolutely goated

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that would open a lot of doors

terse wagon
lofty tundra
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if you did research in virtualization or databases, companies like Databricks would eat you up if its successful and gets published

terse wagon
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as opposed to UROP/equivalent

lofty tundra
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and those are really sought after

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sorry, question from me this time, UROP?

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unpaid im assuming?

terse wagon
brave zephyr
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so what im hearing is, don't TA next semester lol

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that was my orig. plan but sounds like im dropping it

terse wagon
lofty tundra
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TA is good but more than once isnt any added value

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yeah

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i TA'd for my NLP course now im gonna research under that prof

terse wagon
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outside of that it’s pretty much useless though

brave zephyr
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fair enough. i did it for res and it paid for groceries

lofty tundra
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valid, id prioritize like any other experience over doing it again though

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you're already in a proactive subset of students for considering all this though, now its just a matter of getting the opportunity lol

terse wagon
lofty tundra
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id reach out to profs at your uni's lab and offer to work unpaid if you have to

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they often dont take on undergrads but any experience at this stage is useful, especially if you can get a paid role in the semester after (my plan)

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fall im gonna do unpaid research -> get a paid position in the spring while im finishing my degree with like 2 classes

brave zephyr
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okok! maybe I overlooked how valued research was

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i was so intimidated to post my resume ngl 😂

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advice yall gave was invaluable. tysm

lofty tundra
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people like to help, unless you put like "roast me" in the title no one's gonna be an ass about it lol

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best of luck man, hope you get a research role or a co-op