Courses, skills that you should care about to land your dream job when out of school. How to balance coursework, interns and finally launching a career.

1. Career options for Science
Graduates
A career advisory

2. Who are science grads?
• Computer Science – Software
• Electrical Engineering – Hardware
• Computer Engineering – Software + Hardware
• Information Technology – Computers and
Telecommunication
• Management Information Systems – Software,
Hardware and Data.

3. How industry works
Product/Project Management
Engineering
Sales / Accounts
Marketing

4. Where sciences Apply?
Product/Project
Management
Engineering

5. Product Management
• Product: People who discuss or decide product
ideas – Product managers, Program Managers,
Designers, Data analysts.
– Degree Requirements: IT/ Arts/Business (anything can go
here)
– Roles: Create mocks, write specs, think about user experience,
design ideas, insightful UX, write features, product roadmap.
– Example reqs: Program Manager Intern, Product Manager
Intern, Data Analytics, Product Designer

6. Project Management
• Project: People who process/delegate product
ideas into software development cycle.
– Degree Requirements: Business/ Management
Information Systems/Information Technology/Comp Sci
– Roles: Build process in software development, write
tickets, build agile systems, develop plans by
communicating with product.
– Example reqs – Project Manager, Business Analyst

7. Core Engineering
• Engineering: People who build scalable products
in estimated time. Who write code.
– Degree Requirements: Computer Sci/Electrical
Engineering/Computer Engineering/Information
Technology or equivalent
– Roles: Build process in software development, write
tickets, build agile systems, develop plans by
communicating with product.
– Example reqs: Software Engineer, Production Engineer

8. QA Engineering
• Quality Analysis: People who build tools to test
code.
– Degree Requirements: Computer Science/Electrical
Engineering/Computer Engineering/Information
Technology or equivalent.
– Roles: Test the product, file bugs, automate tests by
writing code sometimes.
– Example Reqs: SDET intern,

9. What to choose?
• If you know what you want, focus on that ONE thing.
• If it’s confusing, don’t panic. Confusion is good.
• Keep your options open for different positions. Create
different resumes with different goals to fit different job
reqs.
• Align your coursework such that the skills you get fit your
dream job req.
• Getting an internship is important.

10. How to balance?
• College time is precious, anxious and exciting. Be
passionate and hang in there.
• Balance fun and learning. Get different experiences in
multiple quotients by meeting people from different majors.
That inculcates independent thinking.

11. Conclusion
You can't connect the dots looking forward you can only
connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that
the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to
trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma,
whatever.
Because believing that the dots will connect down the road
will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when
it leads you off the well worn path.
Steve Jobs,
Stanford Commencement Address (video), 2005