From the ENIAC Board: Diving into your first job
Some might fear this for years, others might look forward to it. After a few years of enjoying the University of Twente as a student and all it has to offer next to your courses, it is time to look for your first job. But what should you do? Do you want to go into an advisory role? Craft software with your engineering skills? Or mentor others looking forward to stepping into Technical Computer Science? Options are plenty, allowing you to combine these aspects as you see fit.
Computer Science is such a diverse field with cyber security, data sciences and software technology boosting most of the businesses today. It is important to pick something you enjoy doing, as it is quite the change from waking up at eleven and doing some coursework until late in the evening to catch up again.
Keep in mind that your job is not just the technical skills you have learned, equally important is the human or social factor. How do you transfer knowledge? Are you a team player?
You do not have to win all arguments, but it is good to be able to articulate your ideas based on new insight. That will help a company move forward to apply state-of-the-art technology into their practices. Therefore, as you start, try to have some one-on-one chats with your new colleagues, even if it is just briefly while getting coffee. Learn what keeps them busy, or what could be improved in day to day work. Sometimes these chats and improvements are small things that you can already pick-up in your first weeks on the job, because those are usually dedicated to introduction and training. These opportunities help you to immediately create a bond with your team and directly get involved with the items you will be working on.
For myself, the first adventure was consulting for an embedded Linux project. The team size was five members, having four software engineers and one test engineer. Most of the software was written in C++ and that is what the team excelled at, creating applications with Qt. A smaller part was Python, used for secure communication with cryptography modules. As only one team member was familiar with Python and the crypto that was used, it opened opportunities for me to step in this knowledge gap and apply the fundamentals I learned. I bonded quickly with my team members as I could join in on both C++ and Python parts of the project.
Time to orient yourself! Where do you want to start? As an alumni organization, ENIAC organizes events to meet your fellow computer science alumni. As a member of Inter-Actief you are also welcome to join ENIAC activities such as the regional drinks. Feel free to ask around among the alumni and learn about the different work environments, atmospheres and learn about what work they do. And if you are at the end of your studies, maybe you can even get a heads-up about an interesting graduation assignment in their company!
Still looking for inspiration for graduation and your first job afterwards? In October ENIAC will again organize speeddates to get students directly in touch with companies, and to discuss graduation options. Companies will introduce themselves by talking about their work field, skills they are looking for and options for assignments. In rounds of five minutes you can chat with them on a technical level to find the ultimate graduation topic to pursue and what would be required to set up such a project.
About ENIAC
The ENschedese Informatica Alumni Club - ENIAC - is the alumni association for Computer Science (TCS), Business Information Technology (BIT) and related masters at the University of Twente. Membership starts from only € 5,- per year. As a member you will receive all I/O Vivats published during the academic year, usually up to four. You are invited to all organized events. Most of these events are free to join for members. Even more important, it helps you stay connected with your roots and students from your time at the University of Twente!
Activity Calendar
- Online activity - October 13th
- Graduation Speeddates (2/2) - November 15th
- Regional Drink (Leiden) - November 17th
- Budget GMM with activity - December 16th