A graduate's advice to students
Last week was “Homecoming -week” a university tradition of welcoming back former students and celebrating the school 's achievements. Many former students came back to see me, so I arranged a special meeting for them to talk with current students. A conversation between students and students is much better than students and professors.
Rudy Savick is a software engineer who is working at Oracle. He told the class: “I graduated five years ago. And I know that a lot of the things that I learned in school are already outdated. When I see many of you here, it is very intimidating because you know things that I do not know. But what makes me excited is returning to the same classroom and seeing Professor Vu here. Do you have any question that you want to ask me?”
A student asked: “Can you describe your typical day at work. What do you do?”
Rudy answered: “OK, I can answer that. We do a lot of different things. A typical day usually involves doing technical work. Writing software, debugging problems, review code, etc. That is always part of a day, but that does not mean that you sit in front of a computer all day. A lot of activities involve working with customers, working with support staff, working with sales and marketing people to solve problems. In addition to technical work, we have to write documentation, so users know how to use our products. We work closely with the marketing department to making sure that they know what we do and what our products can do to the customers.”
Another student asked: “So how do you keep up with your skills?
Rudy answered: “I try to learn as much as possible. I read a lot of technical articles and going to conferences. My company allows each employer to go to two conferences a year. I can select which conference to go to, but my view is to choose conference in areas that I do not know so I can learn new things. For example, this year I will go to the “Internet of Things” conference which is something I do not know, so I can learn new thing and become more valuable to the company. What motivates me is always learning new things. Every day when I go to work, I do not know what will happen on that day, so I always prepare for whatever happen. Having a job is easy but keeping the job is more difficult, so I am always prepared for the fast pace of innovations. That is the best advice that I learned here.”
A student asked: “What else do you want to tell us?”
Rudy explained: “As you are still in school, you should study something you like to broaden your knowledge. Experience has taught me that a software engineer need not confine to this field. I find that people with additional knowledge in business or finance tend to make a better software engineer than people with only knowledge of computer. At my company, there are people with Arts degree but took additional computer courses, and they seem to have a very interesting way on how to build things and how user interfaces should work. They work as Graphic Design specialists, and they do well with their talent.”
“What I also learned after working in the industry is the need to read fast and write well. It surprises me on how bad some graduates read and write, and it is something that all of you should spend the time to improve it. You should read a lot to find out what good writing is. You also should write a lot, and get someone to review it. If you want to advance in this career, you must read and write well, and if not, other people are not going to be very receptive.”
“There are other aspects for which students should be prepared. One is the need to continue learning throughout their careers. You cannot just finish school and spend the time to play video games or watching movies in the evening and doing your work during the day and think life is easy. You have to stay on top of things because there are so much thing going on every day as you interact with other in the workplace. There are many things that you need to pay attention, and, if not, you may lose your job. By continue to learn and stay ahead hopefully it will protect you from this issue.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
