Takeaways

College App Process:

  • CS is lottery at UCSD, take lottery into consideration
  • Do as much as possible (based on chance)
  • CS difficult to transfer into (look into less competitive alts if not necessarily just CS)
    • Specific for college doesn’t matter too much for CS, math, physics, etc.
  • Recommended EC or activities:
    • Teaching position
  • Internships/Jobs:
    • Build personal project to boost resume
      • Personal website
      • Have something tangible to show
    • Find company you want to intern at and redesign/improve smth they alr have
      • Detailed Readme
      • Doesn’t need to be complete
    • Start with smth fun, keep building on it
    • Leetcode practice
  • Look at:
    • Vercel
    • SvelteKit
    • Tailwind CSS
    • Hyperplex (Youtube channel)
  • Treat personal site as portfolio, include lessons learned and past mistakes

Reflection

I learned that it is important to decide, first and foremost, whether I want to do pure CS or if I want to do a coding related job. Additionally, I learned about the importance of internship and experience, since they really bolster a resume. Beyond this, I realized that personal projects that I build over time can really help my applications to both college and jobs, and it also grants me valuable skills and experience for me use in school and/or the workplace. The presentees also heavily stressed using Leetcode to prepare for interviews, since if you don’t get 100% in an online interview there is no chance for getting a call back for future stages. Most of all, I need to create a personal website that shows my experiences, my interests, and flexes my skills in projects and coding. I also need to remember that showing that I am human is important to emphasize. For the future, I want to explore Vercel, SvelteKit, and the other resources they mentioned and I want to build up my personal page in the format of a portfolio.