For your information: ALL of the seniors (there are 18) graduating in Computer Science Spring/Summer’11 and in Software Engineering (5 for whom I was the academic advisor) have completed the Outcomes Assessment questionnaire.  One of the things asked of these individuals was the company offer they accepted or the graduate school admission they have accepted.

The problem faced by the seniors this semester was which job offer to accept.

Two of the seniors in Computer Science have accepted admission into the graduate program at ISU—one into the Ph.D program in Computer Science and one into the master’s program in HCI.

The mean starting salary of the five Software Engineering seniors was $59,200.  The high salary was $81,000. The Low was $50,000  Three of the five accepted positions with companies based in Iowa.

The mean starting salary of the 18 seniors in Computer Science graduating Spring/Summer’11 was $63,200 with high salary of $104,000 (for a senior who had been working full-time in IT for ten years with an AA degree) and a low of $45,000.  If the salary of the high was eliminated (and it is for a position here in Iowa), the mean was $59,800 with a high of $82,000 and a low of $45,000  Five of the 18 accepted offers with companies based in Iowa.

For the three Software Engineering seniors who accepted positions in Iowa, the mean salary was $50,600 with a low of $50K and a highs of $52k.

For the Computer Science seniors accepting a position in Iowa, the mean salary (eliminating the $104K because of the extensive prior work experience) of the four accepting positions in Iowa was $50,750 with a low of $45k and a high of $59,500.Congratulations to our graduating seniors!!!

I just spent five hours troubleshooting some tests for my CS417 testing project. We’re testing a 6 year old poker game that was probably developed as a senior design project. The documentation on their project is incomplete on many areas. Since I couldn’t find a place where they said how cards or stored or coded and I couldn’t easily see how they were assigning values, I guessed. My assumption was that when storing cards as integers, you would sort the cards by suit. The first 13 elements would be one suit, the next another.

Long story short, I was wrong. Their method was to sort by value: the first 4 elements were the 2’s, the next four were the 3’s, etc. And an entire day later, I now have a ton of hand generators that are outputting arrays of integers that didn’t match up with what their code expects.

For the sake of the sanity of all those who come after you, please document your projects thoroughly.

The career fair was two weeks ago and I’m still waiting to find out where I’ll be this summer. This post outlines my approach to my search and how stuff went.

Here’s the resume I took to the career fair: Adam Reineke’s Spring 2011 resume [PDF]. I tried to create a hybrid resume that contained elements of a traditional resume enhanced with a writing style that would be more commonly found in a cover letter. My goal was to take the three areas that recruiter are most concerned with — education, experience, and extra-curricular involvement — and highlight those. I’ve heard these three described as a three-legged stool. You need all three, and if one is lacking, it can hurt your opportunities.

My cumulative GPA is 2.58, which is low enough that it blocks me from getting pre-selected for most interviews and even keeps some companies from taking my resume (namely a large medical company). The magic GPA number is 3.0. Below that, you struggle. Above that, you’re fairly set. The career fair offers a great opportunity to talk to recruiters who have to talk to you before throwing you out. I took advantage of this by highlighting my core GPA, a 3.18, which shows that I am competent in my focus area. Some companies, especially those with hard cutoffs, are familiar with this tactic and ask for the cumulative instantly, ending the conversation quite quickly. Other companies didn’t even ask.

So how’d it go?

Before the career fair, I applied for four interviews and was approved for two. I had also posted my resume on Twitter and landed an interview from that. At the career fair, I talked to around fifteen companies. (I had printed 30 resumes and I currently have 11 left after giving some out at interviews and giving one or two to friends). One scheduled an interview right on the spot, everyone else got back to me later. Over the next week, updates started coming in. I interviewed with, in alphabetical order:

• AEGON (in person)
• Blue Compass (on-site)
• Emerson/Fisher (in person, phone)
• Garmin (phone)
• Microsoft (in person)
• Pearson (in person)
• Rockwell Collins (in person)
• Thinix (in person, phone)

Responses, in no particular order (but not alphabetical):

• No, you’re overqualified and would be bored, but when you graduate, please apply for a full-time position.
• No, my GPA is too low, but I’m a strong candidate and was told to stay in touch with the recruiter so when my GPA improves I can schedule an interview.
• Currently scheduling an on-site interview.
• Waiting to hear back.
• Waiting to hear back.
• Waiting to hear back.
• Waiting to hear back.
• Waiting to schedule.

Of all those interviews, I only had two that asked any technical questions. One asked if I used tables or CSS to lay out web pages, so I pulled up some pages I had worked on and showed off my code. I think that stopped them from asking more questions. The other asked the process I would go through to develop a website, mostly discussing the gathering requirements and design phase. All the other interviews were behavioral questions and questions about work I had done previously.

I’ll think on the behavioral questions I was asked and let you know some of those in a future post. One of them was really tough. I gave a joke answer for another and made one my interviewers laugh pretty hard. Check back soon!

That means I’ll need to stick around Ames this summer and finish Calc 2 (May 17-July 9), so my summer break will run from July 9 until August 23rd (or 44 days without class). That’s still plenty of time to have fun.

This morning’s message at the Ames E-Free church was about laziness. Pastor David Staff has been preaching a series of messages out of Proverbs, and this one came at a great time for me.

First though, notes from the sermon are available. Scroll to the bottom and search for “Proverbs about WORK – A Call to Diligence” and click the icon that looks like a sheet of paper. In the zip file that downloads, the file name that starts “Got Wisdom #8…” is probably the note sheet you’d want to read (either PDF or Word format, they’re identical). That page also has an MP3 as well as video of the sermon.

In the notes, it lists how Proverbs describes a sluggard:

• He doesn’t get out of bed (Prov 6:9)
  Almost every day this week, my alarm rang at 6:30 or 7:30. Not once did I start my day at that time.
• He is physically out of shape (Prov 19:24)
  I was going to go running every other day right when I got up. I didn’t get up, and therefore didn’t run.
• He life is cluttered with cumbersome junk (Prov 15:19)
• He is self-deceived (it’s almost impossible to correct him) (Prov 26:16)
• He can’t be trusted when sent on an errand (Prov 10:26)
• He typically spends his time on empty pursuits (Prov 12:11, 28:19)
  I wasted a lot of time surfing the web this week, most of which wasn’t beneficial.
• He refuses to work hard (Prov 21:25)
  While doing homework, I divided my attention between it and a movie quite a bit, or I’d take a “short” break to check Facebook or Twitter. That decreased my productivity by a lot.
• He has irrational excuses why he won’t go out and try (Prov 26:13)
• He’s always short on what he needs (Prov 19:15, 21:26, 24:33-34)
• He talks a lot, but little happens (Prov 14:23)
  I had big plans for a very productive week, but I didn’t follow through.
• He is actually destroying himself (Prov 21:25, 28:9)

His notes continue:

Let me be frank. Whether you’re a student doing your homework, or an employee doing the company’s work, or a wife doing the housework, or a … If you have a problem with laziness – if you find yourself described in the sluggard, you are living out a habit which dishonors God and will severely disadvantage your life. And therefore, it is time to come to a crossroads of honesty with yourself…and begin a process of change in response to God.

So…how does that process of change happen? It starts with agreeing that laziness is not only unwise, it is sin. It is an offense to the character of God who made you in His image and designed you to be created and work diligently and use all your endowed giftedness to be productive. Laziness is sin.

This message was timely for me because I just finished my first week back at school. If I were to grade the effort I put into this week, I’d give myself somewhere around 65%. Yeah. I can’t afford to have a semester where I put in 65% effort. I did that last year and my GPA reflects it, and I have to pay the price for the bad GPA. I got an e-mail this week about an position on campus I had been nominated for. I was pretty stoked, ’til I read the application requirements: 2.5 GPA or higher. Guess who has an embarrassing 2.3?

If I run this whole semester at 65% effort, when they post grades on Christmas Eve, I won’t be happy. I won’t be proud of my work. I’ll kick myself for the third crummy semester when I didn’t fulfill my God-given potential. Let me ask you, since a lot of you are probably back in school: How would you grade the effort you put in this week? Maybe you’re older, working a full-time job. How was the effort you put in at work this week? Don’t answer, but think about it. [Editor's Note: I earned a 2.49 GPA in the semester I talked about here. Largely in part because I gave up on Calc 2, because it was too hard, because I didn't put in the effort to do the homework.]

I’m lazy, and that’s a sin.

I heard a quote recently, “First, you make your habits. Then your habits make you.” If you build up positive habits like getting up early and studying hard, those habits will work to positively build you up. But if you’re like me and you’ve built in a pattern of habits that maybe aren’t… quite so… positive, you’ve gotta change. I have to change those habits, and that starts by trying again next week and focusing on the areas where I fell short this week.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV)

Question: Last week, did you use the time you were given to the best of your ability? This week, what are you going to do differently?

Over break, the group was assigned to answer the following questions regarding ISU and the tuition we pay:

• What is my education worth?
• Where do I think ISU’s tuition should be?
• What kind of strategies should the college use to convey to students that we are a valuable entity?
• What are the three most important things I am getting from Iowa State?

Although I hadn’t initially written my response with the intention of sharing it, I think that someone may find it of interest, so I thought I’d post my thoughts…

The mean starting salary for ISU Computer Science seniors graduating May 2009 was $53,400. The average starting salary for high school graduates was $31,370 as of July 2009. That is a difference of nearly $22,000. One salary scale I saw indicated that by around 15 years of employment, an employee should be making around $75,000, with up to $25,000 more in bonus pay. The average salary for a high school graduate who has been with their company for 10-19 years was $43,937 in July 2009. That’s a yearly difference ranging from anywhere between $30,000 and $56,000. What is that difference worth to me? I have decided to commit four or five years of my life to Iowa State University and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees.

Compared to the other schools, annual in-state tuition and fees totaling $8500 seems like a fair and average amount. Tuition would be $280 per credit hour (15 per semester), or around $850 for a three credit class. Based on my calculations, this appears to only be a difference of around $8-10,000 over four years ($3325 vs. $4250/semester, increasing by 2.3% per semester). Would I pay an extra $10,000 for a degree? Certainly!

But how can other students be convinced that college in general is worthwhile? If you hadn’t noticed already, I love numbers. I think that on this topic specifically, the numbers show clearly that a college degree is a good idea. If you wanted to convince students that ISU specifically is the best place for them, I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all approach. There are too many variables: home state, field of interest, scholarship offerings, and many more. Let the numbers speak. Tell students what ISU graduates in their field are making upon graduation and offer comparison data from surrounding schools. Highlight where graduates in their field are working now and what cool accomplishments they have achieved.

The most important thing I’m getting from ISU is the piece of paper that says “Bachelors of Science.” I believe that anything that I learn in a classroom I could learn independently. There are a plethora of computer science books available (with a large number of free resources online) that could replace every lecture. There are also a large number of open source software packages that are always in need of additional help. This would offer experience that would replace group projects and potentially even internships. However, even with an education and some group project experience, most employers won’t hire someone unless they have a diploma.

The second most important thing I’m getting from ISU is the reputation of the college with local employers. Although our computer science department isn’t a highly ranked program (on one list I saw, it was tied for 61 on a list of the top 75 CS programs), businesses in the Midwest recognize that ISU can produce competent CS graduates. As someone who plans on staying in the Midwest upon graduation, I’m happy to see the number of employers that recruit from our department. Because I was a student at ISU, I was able to land an internship with a growing Iowa-based company that hires CS grads almost exclusively from Iowa State.

Perhaps the third most important thing would be a tie between networking and extra-curricular activities. I’ve met a ton of peers studying in my field and have gotten to know several faculty and employers. With the recent rise of social media, I don’t think these connections would have been too difficult to establish outside of the university, but I cannot say for sure. There are a number of extra-curricular activities that would be hard to replace outside of the university. I’ve participated in ACM Programming Competition twice and Cyber Defense Competition three times. I’m co-chair of Cyclone Family Weekend. I helped organize demos of several students’ work for VEISHEA, and next year I expect to help teach the Computer Science Learning Community study sessions. Again, with volunteer opportunities always available in the local community and online programming contests, these experiences aren’t exclusive to Iowa State, but the university provides a good environment for connecting students to a variety of experiences.