Jobs and Internships¶
What is a Computer Science or Data Science job like? I get asked that question frequently by both prospective students and college students alike. The fact is that most young people don’t meet software developers in their young lives. Teachers, doctors, nurses, musicians are all more prevalent or at least more visible in their lives. So, it is no wonder that young adults don’t have software developer on their minds because they don’t have any role models.
The fact is that unlike the stereotypes of computer programmers, most computer programmers blend right in to everyday life. You may not know you are talking to a software developer until you ask them what they do. My next door neighbor is a software developer. She works from home. My two sons are software developers. One played football in college, the other was a tuba player in the symphony orchestra and concert band. My point is, there is no way to look at someone and know that they also have these Computer Science or Data Science skills. The people in the picture are the 2018 graduating class of Computer Science seniors at Luther College.
Computer Science and Data Science have gotten a pretty bad rap for being just for geeks. The reality is the job is collaborative, full of creativity, demanding, and fun! You get to build things for a living. It’s kind of like a little more cerebral Lego building job. When you learn the skills of Computer and Data Science professionals, you get good at putting the building blocks together in different ways to build some really wonderful solutions to problems. That’s what Computer Science and Data Science are all about: Solving problems to make lives better.
Here are some of the problems that have been worked on by software developers and in particular by Luther College graduates.
IBM - Developing the Watson Health project that is helping doctors match cancer patients with cancer studies.
Hormel Foods - Helping a great company efficiently run its meat processing business (and distributing SPAM world wide!).
John Deere - Helping the farmers and would-be farmers (like me) of the world feed the world.
Medtronic - Making pacemakers and other medical devices that give people a better life.
Delta Airlines - managing billing and airline traffic around the world.
Mayo Clinic - Building software in so many areas like machine learning, data visualization, surgical instrumentation, and many, many other projects that are all giving us the best health care available.
Pearson Publishing - Delivering electronic content to people world-wide.
Accenture - Providing consulting services for companies like Best Buy.
HealthSparq - Helping people make smarter health care choices.
Innovative Software Engineering - Helping leading companies create intuitive, end-to-end software solutions.
Wahoo Fitness - Delivering exciting training and exercise equipment.
Google - Searching the world for answers.
Apple - Software and hardware innovation.
Microsoft - Building software that we all use.
Amazon - Surprisingly, one of the biggest software developer employers on the planet right now. They provide services to nearly every other computer company out there through what is called Amazon Web Services (AWS).
And the list goes on. There are so many companies that have hired and continue to hire software developers that there are literally too many to name. This article published in USA Today in 2017 gives you a peek into the job market. In 2017 there were 8,916 open positions for data scientists and 72,800 openings for software developers. In the same article another source said there were 500,000 job openings in computer programming related areas, while only 50,000 graduates per year. Today LinkedIn lists 2100+ data scientist jobs and 171,000+ jobs for software developers. Whatever the exact numbers, it’s crazy right now and these are skills you should develop.
And, with high demand, comes higher pay. While these jobs are rewarding and I personally would almost work for free for some of these jobs (at least for a while) they are paying college graduates from $80,000 to $100,000 per year in most cases as of 2018 when I am writing this. I can’t promise that salary for everyone, but if you follow some of my suggestions below, many students should be able to command that type of starting salary.
So, what can you do to prepare yourself?¶
First and foremost, pick a school where you can ask questions of someone more experienced and get them answered. This is important because with the high demand, good teachers are becoming scarce. Going to a large university will mean that you never talk to anyone other than a graduate student in your early undergraduate classes. There are literally thousands of students all trying to take Computer Science or Data Science at large universities. The competition is tough to just stay in the program because they want to weed out most of the entering freshman before upper level classes begin. At smaller schools make sure your teachers have an advanced degree and are not just adjuncts. An adjunct is a person who has another job and teaches one or two courses. That means teaching is a second job, not their first job and that means they are likely going to have less time for you and less experience teaching. Look for full-time professors with advanced degrees. A little industry experience doesn’t hurt as well, and adjuncts are always bad of course, but you should beware of a college that has lots of adjuncts because they are likely not paying their teachers well and therefore they are getting a lesser quality teacher.
Next, get a well-rounded education with both practical experience in Computer Science or Data Science, some theory of computation, and other more general skills like presentation skills, writing skills, and maybe some expertise outside of Computer Science and Data Science. For instance, people with Biology and Computer Science together can command even higher salaries in the right institutions (like Mayo Clinic for instance). Computer Science and Data Science represent skills we learn to solve problems in other areas. When you can combine these skills with another area you make yourself even more desirable in some circumstances. If you have another passion, combine it with Computer Science or Data Science and you have a great career path.
Get good grades. You should be looking to maintain a B average in school at the least. Employers want to see a 3.0 or better GPA. But, don’t be afraid of not getting A’s on everything. I have seen too many students take one course, get a B, and think they can’t do it and they switch right away. Don’t do that with Computer Science or Data Science. You are learning something completely new, so don’t beat yourself up or give up too quickly. You need to work at it of course, but don’t be intimidated either.
Volunteer in computer organizations. The Association for Computing Machines is the professional organization of Computer Scientists. They have lots of links for students to projects and or organizations where you can volunteer or participate in some way. Employers love to see this kind of initiative.
Learn to program of course! You can learn a lot on your own in high school. There are courses on websites like Coursera that can help. I have many resources available as well on my main page. You should check out the video lectures and my introductory textbook. You can learn a lot from the lectures and the text if you make a concerted effort to follow through and write some of the problems in the book.
Dig into some interesting problems you find along the way. Good places to look for interesting problems are:
Code.org is a learning site that is used extensively by schools.
Codecademy has good resources.
Your favorite professors home page! Your college professors might share what they are interested in. It’s great to actually have a person to talk to face to face.
Again ACM.org has lots of links to places to look.
This website provides 64 resources for learning to code.
Strive to take enough Computer Science or Data Science to make it worth your while to get an internship after your sophomore or junior year in college. These internships are paid (usually around $15 to $25/hour) and often result in job offers after graduation for rising seniors. So, many seniors have a job lined up before they start their senior year in college. Every one of the companies above and literally hundreds of companies in and around any larger city are looking for interns in Computer Science or Data Science. They are often looking in the fall for the next summer. Start looking and applying in September for the next summer. Typically companies are still looking up until Christmas or so, but some will even be looking in the spring. So, it is never too late to start. An internship gives you the opportunity to know a company and the company an opportunity to get to know you.
Finally create a LinkedIn profile for yourself with links to things you have learned and that lists skills you have mastered like programming in a particular language, contributions to a project, or volunteer work that you have participated in. This starts to build your network for finding on of these jobs or internships. Include the address for your profile on any resume you create for applying for jobs and internships. Employers will go out and read more about you online to see what you might have done in your spare time.
Take the initiative to do at least some of these things! It will pay off for you. There are so many jobs available that as long as you work at it and maintain a B average or so, you are almost guaranteed a good job that is rewarding and exciting! Good Luck!!!
Kent D. Lee, Professor of Computer Science and Data Science at Luther College