geekitarian

Here's a presentation I put together for Duquesne's Math and CS Seminar Series a few weeks ago.

The fall semester is a challenge - coming back to school after a summer off, it can be hard to get right back into the swing of things. Vacations, barbecues, parties, trips... there are lots of things to keep you out of the studying mindset for a few months and that can bleed into the fall semester. Unfortunately, lots of companies will have selected their summer interns by the time you've read the syllabus for all of your classes. This means that you've got some work to do to secure your dream job. Here are a few tips to hit the ground running. #1: Figure out what you want. If you're a freshman, you can learn a lot about companies you might like to work for at this point - there are definitely internships out there for after your freshman year, but if you don't feel like you're ready, you can still also collect lots of information. As a sophomore, next summer might seem like a long way away, but it's important to consider if you're going to want an in...

Let me tell you a little story.  The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent and it's vague because I'm not really so great with specifics. Let's call the subject of this story Steve.  Steve sent out a message asking how he could set up his corporate email on his iPad.  Unfortunately, instead of sending that message out to the proper person or mailing list in his company, he figured "bigger is better" and sent it out to as many people as he could - 4000 users seemed to be the limit, so Steve was sure to use up all the resources he could. In 1989, it would have been a lot of paper. This little action seems to be pretty innocuous at first, but it has huge ripple effects that still affected message delivery hours later. The problem starts out simple.  Let's do a thought experiment so we can see the repercusions of this one message. Let's assume that the mail server can do only one thing at a time, and that copying this first mes...

When I say networking, what I’m talking about doesn’t have anything to do with plugging Cat5e cables into NICs.  Personal or social networking is a great way to find a job and to get an interview.  The best leads you will get will be due to knowing somebody who knows somebody. The reason why networking is so important is because the interview process is inherently flawed.  Think of it – you ask somebody to come in, at their best dressed, most prepared, and likely at the top of their game to ask a few hypothetical questions with little or no consequences for wrong answers.  Networking removes some of the mystery.  Instead of hearing the best possible description of a situation (“My application was responsible for 2 million dollars in revenue!”), you can hear the whole story (“That application was responsible for 4 million dollars in lawsuits!”). A personal reference is likely worth more than anything you can put in your resume (except for maybe “Nobel Pr...