I need help finding this movie I've seen a long time ago. Google hasnt been any help... It was a typical killing game hosted by a psychopath. I dont remember if it had dice or not, but the contestants had a number of cigarette burns on a part of their body to identify themselves, which might be why dice is involved. In one of the scenes a contestant had to decide whether or not to sacrifice another contestant or themselves by injecting them with doses of heroin because of their history. I think the host had long hair. Contestants were separated by transparent walls until their turn.
If anyone has any ideas, that would be great.

so i got the Big solid conditioner for christmas. i read that there's a learning curve with the solid products and i know how to at least use them. i'm familiar with the solid shampoos and know the best methods, but i've been having trouble with the conditioner. it makes my hair smell amazing and look amazing- but only when i put in the right amount, which is like a game of russian roulette for me rn. because there really is no "slippery" feel to it to gauge how much i applied, i either put too little and my hair is super frizzy and staticky, or too much and my hair feels super waxy and heavy when it dries. before, i usually used a lot of cream conditioner because i have long thick asian hair and detangle with it in the shower, but i really have no point of reference of what is the right amount. now thinking about it this is a weird question, but has anyone had the same problem? any tips?

A /cscareerquestions College Survival Guide

With our final school year beginning, we were reflecting on how lost and confused we were when we first started university. We made a lot of mistakes (still am) along the way, but we’re in a much better place after learning from them and constantly putting ourselves out there. In hopes of shining some light and helping others, we decided to make a comprehensive guide for university students – based on our knowledge/experiences - on how to start your successful CS Career (or gain the wisdom to avoid CS altogether, more on this later).
rishiss Background: I am a 4th year student at UC Irvine majoring in Software Engineering. I am an incoming Software Engineer at a F100 company (received return offer after interning this summer). Before that, I interned at an R & D center for space, a small cloud company, and a small IT company. I have a 3.65 GPA, won a few awards at startup competitions/hackathons, and remain pretty active in my schools CS organizations.
chaitu65c Background: I’m a 4th year student at UC Irvine majoring in Computer Science. I’m currently a SWE Intern at a Unicorn and just wrapped up my 2nd internship at a Live Streaming Company(you can most likely tell who they are if you browse my history LOL). Before this, I interned at my school’s IT department, did research under a professor, and worked on a few small startups that other UCI students were building. I have a 3.3 GPA, won some awards along rishiss and was pretty active in my school’s CS clubs.
Disclaimer: “But rishiss/ and chaitu65c, you don’t work at a Big N, go to a target CS school, why should I take your advice?” You’re absolutely right; we are, by no means, ‘up there’ like some other folks on this sub. And, you don’t have to take our advice! Simply close this tab and do whatever else you want 😊. Our intent is to guide and prepare uni students for a CS career they enjoy, not work at Big N or get the highest TC. Life is much more than a dick-measuring contest, and the earlier you learn that the better.
We have also created a guide with our own personal advice/stories

Please, take this advice with a grain of salt. we’re not Tony Robinson or Tim Apple, we’re just two random reddit users.

Table of Contents:

This guide is divided into the following sections:

• Is CS Right For Me?
• Classes
• Projects
• Hackathons
• Resume
• Friends and Networking
• Freshman Year
• Sophomore Year
• Junior Year
• Senior Year
• Searching for Internships
• Searching for Full Time Jobs
• Final Thoughts

Is CS Right For Me?

The way we see it, there’s 3 types of people pursuing CS.

1. Those who know CS isn’t for them – They’re in it for the money, to appease their parents, for a minorequirement, some external factor. They hated programming while taking the introductory CS course and just try to get done with their class/degree ASAP.

Advice: The majority of people who fall under this usually burn out quickly, as they aren’t motivated enough to learn the material and to apply themselves. This usually leads to them cheating and getting kicked out of their major, minor, or university altogether. Even if you manage to earn a degree, we've seen a large number of these folks endure a 'pre-mature' mid-life crisis or simply get fired from their jobs. Before you even start this major, you should definitely understand that this isn’t going to be easy, and you do have to put in a lot of effort to succeed. If this isn’t your cup of tea, definitely look into switching into another major you like.
Some folks are really passionate about technology, but don't want to pursue an entire Computer Science major or see themselves as Software Engineers. That's completely ok! Try looking into related majors or minors. We know many students who switched from CS to majors like Informatics, Business Information Management, and Economics and are thriving in tech-related roles like Data Analytics, Product Management, UI/UX Design, and Technical Recruiting. CS is not (and should not be) for everyone, and there is no shame in having the wisdom quit and move on.

1. Those who don’t know if CS is for them – Where most of the CS community is IMO. These folks (like me, rishiss) are riddled with something called Imposter Syndrome: “the constant feeling of not being good enough or knowing enough to do your job well.”

Advice: For students, really take the time to learn and be open to anything you go through. Try sticking it out until you've taken a Data Structures course, one of the harder, more important courses out there. If you're not understanding the material or just aren't having fun with it, it’s definitely ok to switch majors/careers. Otherwise, CS just might be the career for you! Give it your best shot!
Admittedly, it's hard to provide stronger insight to overcoming Imposter Syndrome, as I am afflicted by it as well. For me, my IS derives from constantly comparing myself to others and confusing inexperience with incompetency. As such, I continue to work and focus on myself and take baby steps towards smaller goals I set out for myself. Knowing that I've put the effort to improve myself by just 1% everyday has made me a lot more confident.

1. Those who know for a fact CS is for them – The diamonds in the rough. Learning and practicing CS material gives them a euphoric high.

Advice: Broaden your scope and learn new areas of CS! Who knows, you might find another new field that you really want to work in. Other than that, definitely make new friends regardless of whether they’re a CS major or not. Even try pursuing other hobbies like weightlifting, reading, dancing, or even public speaking. Don't limit yourself!

Freshman Year

We recommend not taking more than 3-4 classes in your first quartesemester, as you shouold keep an ample amount of time to go to professional/social events, make new friends and hang out with them, and pursue your interests.
We've seen a lot of freshmen (and upperclassmen) CS folks get cooped up in their dorm rooms playing video games and watching TV. We understand that these two are a passion for many, but please be cautious to not get consumed by them.
You have the privilege of pursuing higher education, making valuable connections/memories, and setting up your CS career in the trajectory you want. This year is the best year to take advantage of all that university has to offer; make the most of it.
One of the best ways to get involved in your school’s/region’s CS community is by joining clubs like ACM and WICS and participating in hackathons (see ‘Hackathon’ section below). Try pursuing internships and positions in these organizations and events as well!
One, major issue we see with freshmen (even upperclassmen) is their ignorance on all the avenues available in the CS Industry. So we’ve tried to narrow it down (not exhaustive).

1. Cyber Security Engineer
2. Front-End Web Developer
3. Backend Web Developer
4. UI/UX Designer
5. DevOps/Cloud/Site-Reliability Engineers
6. Mobile Engineer
7. QA Engineer
8. Product Manager
9. Data Scientist (Machine Learning/AI)
10. Embedded Software Engineer
11. Systems Administrator
12. Database Administrator (The Wizards)
13. Networking Engineer
14. Hardware Engineer
15. OS Developer
16. Video Game Developer
17. Solutions Architect/Sales EngineeTechnical Account Manager

As a freshman, definitely take the time and see if you can picture yourself doing any of the listed fields. You should open yourself to all facets of CS and not just the “hot field” like Data Science and Machine Learning. Choosing a field because it’s “exciting” will usually lead to bad results as usually, other people are thinking just like you and will lead to over-saturation.
Our recommendation is to select the top 5 fields that have piqued your interest and experiment with the field. For example, if you are interested in Mobile App Development, try learning how to build an Android app from the ground up. A simple weather app or alarm clock is completely suitable for a first project/prototype. This lets you understand what skills you would need for this field and can serve as a forecast as to what your career would look like.
You should definitely look for an internship. Ignore the people that tell you to wait until you’re a junior, as it’s going to be very hard to get an internship if you don’t have any experience. Common places that most students don’t realize are available are usually IT departments at your school and even research with professors. Researching is highly recommended as you can definitely learn more about a field you can be interested in and if you’re interested in graduate school, that’s going to be a letter of recommendation that you can ask for.
If you’re considered a minority in Computer Science, look into first and second year internship programs as they’re meant to help you succeed. Here’s some programs that come to mind:
Google STEP
Microsoft Explore
Amazon Future Engineer
Uber STARInternhip
Facebook University
Another way to get internships is to research into smaller companies in your area. If the company is very small (<100 employees), consider reaching out to the CEO on LinkedIn. They might be able to help you! Also, take advantage of university recruiting websites like Handshake to see companies that directly hire from your school. More info on how to get an internship in the ‘Searching for an Internship’ section.

Sophomore Year

Now that you have basic programming knowledge, create your own website or GitHub account and start contributing to them with small personal projects. Nobody expects you to make a full-stack MERN project hosted and scaled on AWS at this stage. Focus instead on clean code, learning a framework or two on a language you like, and creating a small, robust feature. Grow from there!
If you weren’t able to find an internship/research opportunity as a freshman, community involvement, projects, and hackathons become especially important, as they are a great way to make you stand out on your resume and to recruiters when you reapply. As you brush up on your skills, apply again, and try your luck out.

Data Structures and Algorithms

In addition, you are most likely to take a Data Structures and Algorithms course this year. Make sure you are focusing on this class and writing good notes; you will need this knowledge when interviewing for internships and full-time jobs in the near future. Here is a link to our DS and A course (in C++) for reference

Junior Year

As a junior, companies are more willing to hire you for an internship, as they are likely to convert you into a full-time employee after graduating. This transition process is much easier than interviewing, and they'll usually offer you a higher compensation package if they want to convert you to a full-time employee. As you now should have knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms, we highly recommend looking into coding interview prep sites like LeetCode and HackerRank or purchasing a prep book like CTCI or EPI (advanced).
Continue to attend hackathons, remain active in clubs/organizations, and grow your portfolio.
Classes will be much harder; expect the time for completing projects to double and the content covered to be much more difficult. We recommend taking no more than 2-3 upper-division CS courses and balancing your load with 1-2 GE classes. You should not be taking more than 16 units (assuming 4 units per course).
Start to get an idea of what field in CS you would like to pursue. Research what it takes to be successful in that field. You can do so by looking up job postings with that title on LinkedIn and looking at the requested skill set or take a look at Roadmap.sh. If you want to learn more about a related skill set and your school doesn't offer a course, consider picking up a class on udemy.com.

Senior Year

Focus heavily on your senior capstone, project classes, etc. as they're the last thing you can put on your resume before applying for full time. By now, you should have at least 3 polished, working projects on your GitHub that you can easily talk about with your recruiter. Preferably, they're aligned with the CS field you wish to enter.
If you were able to get a return offer from an internship, congrats! However, don’t immediately sign the offer. Once you have an offer, you should still try to interview at companies that you’re interested in by the deadline of the time to accept the offer. A good way of doing this is to reach out to a University recruiter for that company and explain the deadline you have. Usually, they’re really helpful and can potentially help skip interviews that you were supposed to do!
In addition, if your friends were able to intern at places you’re interested in, definitely ask for a referral or to send your resume to their recruiter. This usually reduces the risk of being ghosted by that company and increases your chances of getting hired!
Once you finally sign, definitely take the time to relax and enjoy. Just make sure you pass your classes and stay out of trouble

Classes:

What Classes should I take?

Should Already be Required:

• Programming in Java/C++/Python (OOP): This is how you’re gonna start coding.
• Boolean Algebra/Discrete Math: Teaches you some background knowledge to CS.
• Data Structures and Algorithms: Teaches you some ways data is stored and retrieved. Very important as you’re going to be using them a lot.
• Low Level Programming /C: Teaches you what coding used to be like in the old days.
• Computer Architecture: You learn what makes a computer a computer including things like logic gates, registers, memory, and more.

Must Take:

• Computer Networks: Highly recommended as it helps you understand Web protocols like HTTP, TCP, UDP, etc.
• Operating Systems/UNIX: Most important class. Teaches you important things such as the kernel, Threads vs Processes and Process Schedulers.
• Databases/SQL: It’s very likely that your job as a software engineer will be to interact with databases. It’s really good to understand what they are before you enter the industry.
• Programming Languages: Teaches you trade offs between languages like C and Python. It definitely helps when you need to pick up brand new languages!

Good to Have

• Full-stack web dev (pref MERN stack, our school offered both LAMP and MERN)
• Very deep understanding of at least one language. (You’ll be surprised to learn how many students who graduate fail to do this)/
• SemesteYear-Long Capstone course (pref working with a company) if your school supports it: an internship where you get school credits instead of money.
• Compilers: Teaches you how programming languages are implemented 'under the hood.'
• Human Computer Interaction: If you weren’t able to learn Full-stack web dev.

How do I succeed in these classes?

rishiss: You’re more than likely coughing up hundreds, if not thousands, to attend university. It makes no sense to not take full advantage of the course and course staff.

• Do the readings beforehand – Dr. K explains how studying before class is an OP mechanic, also highly recommend this video on how to study by him as well
• Attend EVERY lecture, sit at the front of the class – I’ve seen a metric fuck ton of students in the back of the class with their laptops shopping, trading stocks, scrolling through Reddit, even watching lesbian hentai. By sitting in the front of the class, you’re forced to stay engaged (and close your porn tabs).
• Take notes– People have many, different ways of taking notes; stick with what works for you.

The way I take notes: I learn from examples; I want to enter my code into the IDE to see what happens. I do a three way split; Google Docs on the left, IDE on top right and terminal (to compile, see output, make new file, etc) on bottom left. I note down the date and topic of the lecture and write questions I have in the comments on Docs. I make sure to highlight important information and possible test questions. I even share the link with friends!
​

• Make a study guide, even though the professor does not give you one – Using my Google Docs notes, I compile the highlighted information into a summarized study guide. It’s a fantastic review tool. I’ve even shared the study guide with professors/classmates and gotten their feedback and extra information.
• Go to office hours and become close with 1-2 professors – Some jobs and most masters/PHD programs require letters of recommendation. While you could get reccs from your work, its great to get a letter from someone in academia, especially if they’re established in the field you are pursuing. Get your ass to office hours and show professors that you are curious and motivated by asking questions about assignments, career, or even personal interests. They provide a cornucopia of opportunities, including research, letters of recc, or even the opportunity to pursue a PHD under them.
• Make friends! - Classes are a great way to meet new people with similar interests and expand your professional network. They can especially be a saving graves if you miss a class, don't understand a topic, and need motivation to prepare for an exam. Don't be afraid to say hello!
• START EARLY ON ASSIGNMENTS – I can’t count the number of times starting an assignment early saved my ass. Starting early gives you time to deal with the unexpected: the family emergencies, the late night hangout with friends, the memory leak on line 74. Procrastination is like playing Russian Roulette with your CS career, don’t take the chance. A helpful video on procrastination

In the quarters where I followed the steps above, I never got a grade lower than an A-.

Dealing with Bad Professors

During your time in college, you’re likely going to have at least one bad professor that might make it worse if you have to go to class. If that’s the case, it’s definitely fine to not go to class (as long as it’s not mandatory). However, if you do decide not to go, you must make sure you learn the material, so you won’t be behind on the coursework and studying for tests. In addition, you should be doing something productive on the side. If you don’t go to class and spend the time watching Netflix or playing video games, you’re losing time that you can spend on something that might be fun and can help you in the long run.

You can take Graduate Courses!?

chaitu65c: A highly underutilized set of courses you can take would be graduate courses. Graduate courses are usually very specialized in certain fields. If you were able to take all the undergraduate courses you wanted and still have spare classes to fill out, I'd recommend researching into taking Graduate courses! They’re a good way to build out your specialization and learn new, cool stuff! In addition, if you’re looking for classes to reach the required number of CS courses needed, your CS department might allow you to make the course count towards your degree!

Projects

They're super important.

How do I succeed in class projects?

• Reading the Project Requirements: Before starting to code, read the requirements and understand what you need to do in order to finish. Too many students ask for help that can easily be found in the requirements which wastes the student’s time.
• Learn to Debug: Learning how to debug saves you countless hours trying to read through code you might not understand.
• Learn to write Clean Code: With this and being able to debug, you’re going to be able to write very efficient code and to debug issues easily, thus not making you only successful in lab assignments, but also making you a better programmer.
• Plan your work out: This allows you to simplify the logic you are writing and this usually leads to clean code.
• Ask for help: If you ever get stuck on something and no matter how much you Google and you can’t figure it out, ask for help. It’s definitely fine to ask for help and is HIGHLY recommended you do so. Take advantage of the lab tutors and TA’s either through in person or Piazza/Canvas; they’re there to help you.
• Draw Pictures: If your project involves multiple things (AWS, Databases, Servers, etc), it’s definitely a good idea to draw a picture that shows you each thing interacts with and how it comes together. This is important especially when you enter the industry and build software for companies.

Personal Projects and your CS Career

rishiss: Projects are your saving grace, especially if you are lacking work experience. They show technical aptitude, willingness to take initiative, and leadership. I’ve seen people with only projects on their resume get positions at the Big N. Projects are good ways to expand your knowledge of CS as the possibilities are endless! It is best to have a variety of projects dealing with a variety of technologies. As such, you can open yourself up to more positions and have more talking points during the interview.
I tend to edit the ‘Project’ Section of my resume with relevant projects and technologies. For instance, if I made a full stack web application and applied to a DevOps organization, I would highlight my AWS, CI/CD, and Terraform experiences more than my React/Node js work.
It is recommend the project is about something that motivates you and are passionate about e.g. video games, movies, books, sports, etc., as it is very easy to give up half way due to stress or lack of motivation/interest.
Like anything else in Computer Science, projects require you to break it down into smaller pieces. Start with the end in mind and draw out the intended architecture/functionalities. Start with what you know and research on the parts you don't know after that. You will be using these skills often in industry for any project/feature planning.
Spending 15-30 minutes a day is all you need to make a successful personal project. Don't make excuses and get coding!

Open Source Contributions

If you’ve ever noticed popular github repositories such as torvalds/linux, these are repositories where people from all over the world can report issues with it and someone can fix it. If you are able to make a contribution to a huge open source repository, it looks really good on your resume.

Hackathons

What are Hackathons?

Hackathons are large scale coding events, where students from around the area come together and collaborate - usually in teams of 4 (but you can go solo or with a partner!) - to build some software. Companies like Amazon, Northrop Grumman, Google, and Twilio sponsor awards related to best use of their technology. After 24 - 48 hours of intensive coding, participants submit their projects, whether it be an Android video game, Chrome Extension, productivity web app, etc. Submissions are shared with the companies and other hackathon organizers, where they select the best projects and award teams with swag like keyboards, gift cards, and even summer internships at their company.
Participating in hackathons are one of the best ways to hone your coding skills, network with companies and other students, and get free comfy T-shirts. It is also one of the best ways to gain industry knowledge, as representatives from these companies and hackathon organizers create numerous workshops and answer any questions you may have. Winning awards at these hackathons are also great resume boosters and talking points during interviews.
The biggest hackathon organizer is Major League Hacking. Visit their website, and you can see all the hackathons (remote or local) they are partnered with. Make to be on the lookout for application release dates from the hackathons and apply early.
With Covid, you may miss out on the free goodies and the in-person networking with students and professionals. However, most hackathons are accepting many more applicants due to it being virtual/remote this year.

What Should I Do At Hacakathons?

Take advantage of the resources available at hackathons. You’re attending a mini CS conference and should be, besides coding, networking with professionals, learning about the different companies, attending workshops, asking technical/non-technical questions to mentors, and getting as much free shit as you can get. Besides T-Shirts, companies give out vouchers to their services, applications to their internship and full-time positions, pillows, notebooks, water bottles, sweaters, and even backpacks.
If you’re looking to get an award, judges at hackathons care a lot about the pitch and the idea rather than the actual execution of the idea. Having an idea beforehand is also helpful, so you can spend your time focusing on the MVP.

Friends and Networking

chaitu65c: I think it’s definitely useful if you have two different friend groups: One dedicated to career and Non-Career Group.
Career Group - When making a friend group dedicated to career, try to be the dumbest person in the group, you’re definitely going to learn a lot from them as you soak up knowledge! Best ways of meeting friends who are career-driven can be through major specific orientation (actually how I met rishiss), courses, major related clubs, etc.
Non-Career Group - While having a group that motivates you for your career is important, it’s also important to have another friend group that can help you relax and to enjoy your time! A really good way to find these friend groups can be anywhere from your hall to General Education courses, social clubs like Circle K, fraternities/ sororities(if that’s your cup of tea) and others!
This is what has worked for us; no need to follow this exact format.

Resume

rishiss: Here are the few take-aways on writing a resume that gets through the ATS.

• Make your resume accomplishment driven, not just a list of your responsibilities – This guy puts it best TL;DR: Your bullets should be in the format -> Accomplished X by doing Y as measured by Z.
• Don’t put school projects that every other CS student in your school has completed. Recruiters are able to figure it out and will look down upon this a lot, as it shows you’re not doing anything outside the classroom to forward your career. Capstone projects are perfectly okay.
• Make it a simple, one-column that recruiters can easily read through. There’s no need for pictures, graphics, colors, fonts, etc; the ATS can't parse this! Overall, keep it simple; the content should be carrying you.Exceptions: The company you are applying for is small, you’re going to a career fair and you know your resume will be hand-read, you’re a UI/UX person or a Graphic Designer.
• Have at least 3 minimum (I aim for 4-5) per work experience/project; it makes no sense when you have such amazing experience and only put two bullets.
• If you have a GPA lower than a 3.0, do not bother keeping it on the resume. If you have a 3.5 +, make sure to keep it.
• Make formatting consistent. This should be a no brainer, but I still see folks’ resume with different fonts, spacing, etc. It’s annoying; don’t do it.
• Focus on individual contributions and leadership, not the team. Recruiters are looking for self-starters and leaders that can see a project throughout the life-cycle, not just another code monkey.
• Expect to be tested on anything you put on your resume. If you don’t think you can answer questions about a skill, tech, or experience on your resume, don’t bother putting it in.
• Make sure to add these items in your resume: Name, School, GPA (unless its less than 3.0), Work Experience, Projects, Skills (one line for languages, one line for tools/platforms are what I’ve seen the most), relevant links (GitHub, Website, Portfolio).
• Take out any old or irrelevant experience. Nobody cares about that Tic Tac Toe game you made in high school.
• Get your resume reviewed multiple times by experienced people in tech. /csMajors and /cscareerquestions also has a weekly resume roast thread that you can take advantage of.

Searching for Internships

Searching for internships in CS is really different and harder from searching for internships in other professions. CS internship interview processes are often longer and much more technical on what you have learned as a CS major. We've prepped 2-3 months beforehand on CS concepts, whiteboarding, etc.

Timeline

This timeline primarily focuses on large, non-government/defense companies or competitive startups. This also assume you are applying for a summer internship.
August - September: Applications are opened to the public. Make sure to look out for positions and apply early, as most companies admit students on a rolling basis. A site that we used often is Apply.fyi. After applying, you may receive an automated (< 48 hours) invitation to complete an Online Assessment, consisting of multiple choice and/or coding questions about Data Structures, Algorithms, and Run Time Complexity. You will have usually 1-2 weeks to complete the assessment. Please that you may be rejected if you are not able to pass 90% of the questions on the assessment: Please also note that you may be instantly rejected due to things out of your control like years of experience, cancellation of internship, internal corporate issues, and more. Don't take rejections too seriously; just keep applying!
October - November: After passing the resume screen and the OA, you will be contacted by the company's recruiter for a phone screen. During the screen, you will probably be asked a few confirmation questions about your resume, sponsorship, years of experience with X, etc. and minor behavioral questions like what made you apply for this position, what are you pursuing outside of class, etc. You may also receive questions about your CS fundamentals e.g. what is a hashtable, whats the difference between a process and a thread, what is the runtime complexity of sorting a string, etc. As long as you're cool and confident (and not cringe/edgy), this part should be a breeze.
November - Mid January: If you made it through the two Thanos snaps, you will be invited to an onsite “Power-Day,” where interviewees attend 2-4 whiteboard interviews while being grilled on their technical skills and projects. Some companies make applicants go through a panel interview, where a team of 2-5 Software Engineers grill you on technical questions and your resume. You are often pampered with free travel, food, stipends, etc.
December - February: If you were deemed a good fit by the hiring committee, you will be extended an offer to intern at the company during the upcoming summer for 10-12 weeks. Remember, nothing is final until you receive an offer letter in your inbox. Some companies may also place you on a wait-list and offer you a spot if someone were to reject their offer letter.
For government orgs, defense companies, and smaller organizations, the recruiting season starts in February/March and usually ends in April and May. After applying online and passing the resume screen, you will usually be immediately pushed to an on-site interview. Most likely, you will be interviewing with your future boss/co-worker.
Please note that internships are not only offered in the summer, they are provided in the Fall, Winter, and Spring (rare) as well. The competition for these internships is usually lower, and the process usually starts 3-4 months beforehand.

How to get the Interview

Besides following resume tips, make sure to apply to as many places as you can. To get our first internships, we recall applying to approximately 250-300 places before we secured our internship plans for that summer. Also, if you do get ghosted, don’t take it personally, usually, university recruiters often spend so much time reviewing a lot of applications.
Other precautions to take to get noticed are to try attending career fairs if you can, you might be able to get an interview(worst case, free swag!). Other than that, try reaching out to upperclassmen or friends you know that interned and ask for referrals. It’s one of the best ways to get noticed!

What to expect

As part of the interview process, there’s 4 types of interviews that you should make sure you know.
Behavioral Interview: These interviews ask you questions about culture fit such as “Why are you a good candidate” and “Tell me about a time when you ...”
Coding/Technical Interview: These interviews ask you questions similar to what you see on Leetcode and Hackerrank. These interviews are designed to test your Data Structures and Algorithms knowledge.
System Design: System Design involves the interviewer testing your building to design a service/software and test your knowledge of understanding what things to use for the task and how you will integrate them together. You’re definitely not expected to know this and it’s not likely you’re gonna get asked this. Places that could ask you this are Unicorns, Trading Companies and Hedge Funds, and Big Established Companies.
Concurrency/Low Level Interviews: If the company’s biggest product involves low level principles such as networking principles and kernel stuff, there’s a possibility you can get asked this. Places that come to mind are hardware companies and trading firms.
Some companies may adopt only one of these interviews and some may adopt all.

How to Ace the Interview

It’s highly recommended that you look up the interview experiences that other students have faced so that you can potentially filter out companies with red flags and know what questions to expect. Common sources to search up on this would be Reddit (csMajors and cscareerquestions), Jumpstart (Relatively new portal for students), Glassdoor and maybe Blind (Aside from the toxic TC or GTFO culture, they do give good advice on interviews). With that said, here’s some advice we have when you approach each kind of interview we’ve seen.

Advice on Behavioral Interviews

Use the STAR method when describing your experiences. Being quantifiable with the impact of your actions will impress the interviewer.

Advice on Technical Interviews

Begin by reviewing your notes from the Data Structures and Algorithms class. Do not proceed further until you know how to implement these DS and As from scratch with the language of your choice(If you do know python, it’s recommended as there’s a lot of builtin features!). After doing so, we highly recommend a book like CTCI and EPI to gain a review on programming language details and your DS and As. Then, visit sites like LeetCode to practice real questions from major companies. A Facebook Engineer completed 600 LC problems and compiled the most important ones into a list here. During the interview, make sure to talk out loud about possible approaches and tradeoffs before whiteboarding. It is perfectly acceptable (often recommended) to ask the interviewer to ask questions about the problem and get clarification. Once you have an idea in mind and have talked about it with your interviewer, begin whiteboarding. While you talk about the final idea you want to use, write out pseudo code and comments about all the steps you need to implement in order to finish coding your solution. After that, start coding. Make sure to have proper function headers, syntax, spacing, classes/structs, imports, etc. After coding your solution, give a brief explanation and attempt to make it run with less space and in less time (if your solution is not as efficient as you think it can be).

Advice on System Design

These are somewhat hard to approach if you don’t have experience ever doing it. If you do have experience designing and building services in your spare time and as part of your work experience, definitely rely on your experience. An important thing is to definitely ask clarifying questions. There might be hidden requirements you didn’t think about that could drastically change the way you approach the solution.

Advice on Concurrency/Low level

Understand basic principles such as Processes vs Threads (A lot of people don’t know the difference!)TCP vs UDP and how to make an application thread safe. Other than that, it’s recommended that you familiarize yourself with basic OS concepts such as Deadlocks, locks that you can utilize to make an application thread safe, etc.

Searching for Full Time Jobs:

The big bucks.
The process for finding a Full-Time Job is usually very similar to finding an Internship. There’s three main differences are:

1. Harder Questions. Ex: Google usually asks Leetcode Mediums to Hards + the special Leetcode Hard question that Google asks it’s applicants (they create a new one every year).
2. More Rounds of Interviewing: For example, Microsoft makes interns do 2 rounds while New Grads do 4 rounds during the onsite part of the process.
3. Compensation: Interns usually get an hourly rate and, possibly, a housing stipend. New grads, however, are given a yearly salary and, possibly, a sign-on bonus, stocks, and benefits e.g. health insurance, vacation days, etc.

The process for finding a Full-time Job won’t really change as much as finding an internship, but keep in mind that the bar is higher. This is probably the biggest reason why you should look into interning early; by getting an offer at the place you like, you don’t need to go through the daunting process of finding a full-time role.
Get as many offers as you can this time around, so you can negotiate and select the position, company, compensation, and location that works best for you.

Negotiation

Negotiation is a really powerful tool that you can use in the interview process, even as an intern. There’s a lot of guides to negotiation and we recommend Nick Singh’s guide (Look at his LinkedIn and newsletters) for more.

Final Thoughts

University is a probably the most important time of your life and a foundational block of your CS Career. Like any foundation, it must be sturdy and takes a tremendous amount and energy of time to develop. Take advantage of all the resources (like this one) you can get your hands on. Definitely learn from the mistakes people have made and make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
‘Stay hungry. Stay foolish’ - Steve Jobs

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night to whoever might be reading this.
As the title of this post insinuated, I would like to offer my 2 gil regarding the Mentor system and Mentors. I will not claim that my views are those of the majority of the playerbase, nor that they are unique. Nevertheless, I would like to say some stuff regarding it as I see quite a few other reddit posters doing the same.
Feel free to agree or disagree to your heart's content, I am full aware that I will, in all likelyhood, not change anyone's mind nor is that truly my aim of this post. I simply want to offer my own thoughts on the matter.
A bit of background: I myself play on the Chaos Datacenter (Europe) and I have been a Battle Mentor in FFXIV for a period of a few months (Dec2019-Mar2020) and I have 1000 succesfull Mentor Roulettes under my belt. My reason for unlocking mentor status and participating in the Mentor Roulette was not to obtain the (Burger King) Crown, but simply to obtain the Dragon Monocle at 1000 successful Mentor Roulettes. I guess being a fulltime Hrotghar will make anybody desperate for any headgear that is visible on one's face (and the monocle is really fancy, I do recommend it :3 ). So while my reason is purely for material gain, I do consider being able to help others as a neat bonus.
I will now provide certain statements (in Bold writing) and will explain/defend/argue in this post in no particular order. Some of these points might blend into each other, but i prefer to do it like this to avoid walls of text (and i'm relatively new to posting on Reddit so my post structure might leave much to be desired, my apologies in advance).
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1) It is perfectly fine for a Mentor to leave a Mentor Roulette (instantly) if he or she wants to.
Now i believe that most people who have had the joy and/or horror to play alongside a Mentor in (EX) content will be familiar with the following scenario: the Mentor instantly leaves without uttering as much as a word. I know this to be true as I myself have done this on numerous occasions, but only really for certain EX fights (ARR).
As a Mentor, it is one's goal (or duty/obligation/raison d'être depending on who you ask) to assist those in Mentor Roulette to clear the Duty in which they are in. These Duties can range from simple Guildhests, to dungeons, to Castrum Meridianum/Praetorium, to EX fights. As you can see this is quite an extensive list of content into which a Mentor can be dropped. Therefore it stands to reason that not all content will be liked as much by the Mentor due to lenght, difficulty, mechanics or even aesthetics/music.
If a Mentor arrives in a specific Mentor roulette where he or she knows that he or she (severily) dislikes a certain piece of content, then of course this will impact the mindset of the Mentor and his or her capability/willingness to help their fellow players/sprouts out.
In such a situation, I find the action of leaving the duty instantaneously when it starts to be for the greater good of the party or the lesser evil, depending on your viewpoint. And when a duty is left, the Mentor will already have their penalty under the form of being locked out of roulettes and instances for 30 minutes, which is in my personal view, already sufficient.
As written above I do leave nearly instantaneously always for certain Mentor EX fights such as Ramuh, Shiva, Good King Moggle Mog XII, and Thordan. The points below will touch further on reasons why that is for me and might be for others.
2) Mentors do not know everything about every encounter or aspect of the game
This might seem rather obvious but it is something I would like to stress. I myself play as a tank for 95%+ of the time. As such, I (should) know quite a bit about the tanking jobs/mechanics and as such, should be able to answer any queries regarding this topic. I do play DPS jobs quite casually every now and then, but I will personally not be able to give anybody endgame tips to truly optimize one's DPS. I also don't really play healers as i do not enjoy the healing role. While as a tank I do know the basics on what to expect from each Healer Job, again i will not be able to provide much usefull assistance beyond the basics.
Therefore it is quite possible for Mentors to give 'wrong' advice while they mean no harm. So please do not think ill of mentors that might have given you wrong or suboptimal advice in the past. In al likelyhood they just wanted to help to the best extend of their capabilities. Of course it is possible that there are certain Mentors who's only joy in life is to deceive and ruin others days in this game, but I honestly do not want to believe that as it is quite depressing :c.
Mentors not knowing everything also applies to boss mechanics. I personally, never once cleared Good King Moggle Mog XII while synced. Therefore i do feel that i would be quite useless in a Mentor position if i were to have this fight in Mentor Roulette. Therefore I leave immediatly as my presence would in all likelyhood do more harm than good and I would rather have a more competent Mentor take my place to assist the other players/sprouts.
As for fights like Ramuh EX and Shiva EX which i did clear a few times unsynced, I tend to leave Mentor Roulette instantaneously for the following point.
3) Mentors are allowed to do content that they enjoy, just like every other player
I firmly believe that every player has content that they like/love to do while other content they dislike or otherwise abhor, be it EX/Savage, PVP, crafting/gathering, Mahjong,......
Personally, I do not like Ramuh EX and Shiva EX, I just don't. I do not have any particular reason, but I simply do not like it. I know of myself that if I force myself to do stuff i do not like, I will be less likely to give it my all, which is not something you want to see/feel from someone in a Mentor position. While of course what one might get out of a roulette is not set is sortof random, it can and will happen. Therefore i will leave these fights immediatly because i do not want to do content that makes me unhappy. I would truly welcome a Mentor system where one could check a box for which type of content they would like to Mentor, but i am aware that this might be EXTREMEly (pun intended) selfish on my part.
On the other hand, I like doing dungeons, guildhests and Praetorium (the latter more for the good 'ol MSQ roulette chat during the unskippable cutscenes).
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4) Mentors can only do so much to help out in a fight
Now you might have all had the experience where a Mentor drops out mid fight or after a wipe (hopefully not the first) with or without salt/toxicity. While Toxicity is of course not allowed and should be reported/blocked, there might be certain 'legitimate' reasons as to why a Mentor just gave up and below are some reasons as to why that might be (in my mind).
4.1) People are not receptive to guidance, advice or commentary
People in general don't really like being told what to do. To sprouts and other non-Mentors, any advice given by a Mentor could be seen as them being cocky, annoying and terrible know-it-alls. I have been there myself with those thoughts, we have them all.
However a Mentor can only explain a fight and give advice, nothing more. A Mentor can on his or her own not really carry a fight so for EX fights for instance, they will ask the other players in the party to heed their guidance and explanations so that they can clear the fight in a proper timely manner. If people do not want to listen, or ignore their texts, then why is the Mentor there in the first place, he or she might think. In such cases a Mentor might leave because it is quite litteraly a waste of his or her efforts and time.
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4.2) At some point, Mentors cannot help any further with a mechanic
An example might better illustrate what i mean by this. I still remember a Mentor roulette where I ended up in O11 (11th fight of the Stormblood Omega raid, the 3rd boss fight of the 3rd tier). Now one of the basic mechanics of that fight (that repeats often) is Lardboard/Starboard: this is when the Boss does a broad attack of a bit over 180° (or maybe exactly 180°, I do not fully remember) either to his left or right based on the name. I believe Lardboard was left, and Starboard was right. Then after one such attack, the boss might jump in place and face another direction and start Lardboard/Starboard again.
Now as a Mentor, i would explain what the attack name means and what to expect. But beyond that, there is little more that I could do for this mechanic as i assume that everybody who plays this game knows what left or right means. If players keep wiping to this rather basic mechanic (disregarding the funky name of the attack), there is nothing further the Mentor can do.
Additionally, the Mentor can also not play your job for you. A Mentor can give tips on how to improve DPS if he or she knows that job well but Mentors cannot reach through the monitor and press your buttons (not litteraly at least). For that same O11 fight, I remember that we did manage to reach the DPS check where you need to kill a stationary target while also standing sometimes in descending tower circles to avoid raid wide damage. The DPS check failed as the group failed to kill the target, and this happened multiple times. It is at this point, that I did honestly give up and left the group. I know that there are way better Mentors out there who would not have given up, but sadly i am not such great a person.
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4.3) the rest of the party is severely undergeared
This is more of a pet peeve of mine but that i do need to get off my chest. Regardless of what content you are doing, please do make sure that your gear is adequatly up to the task of clearing said content in a smooth manner. For instance (pure theoretically), dont go into a leveling roulette where (due to ilvl combinations) you might get into a lvl 67 dungeon as a WHM with only a Heavensward lvl 50 weapon. This makes the content harder while such as situation is avoidable by gearing up.
Now I would be a major hypocrite if I claimed that i never did this. Often I was level 49/59/69 etc, basically any level before a big boost in Ilvl being available. Because of this, I did not want to spend any gil on Marketboard gear while i would be probably able to gear up via tomestones after this very roulette. But please do bear in mind that you can potentially really annoy your teammates.
As a real example that I came accross way to often during my Mentor Roulettes is when I got the Lvl 79 dungeon (lovingly forever named 'The Gulag' in my heart and mind). So often did i check my party members' gear (I always do this with the healer at least to gauge how much i should pull) to find out that both DPS and the Healer were still using (un)augmented Scaevan gear. To clarify, this is the gear that became available when the last tier of Stormblood's Omega raids were released. As such, this is still lvl 70 gear. While i do aggre that this gear (augmented or not) can last you quite a bit in Shadowbringer content, I do feel that as of Lvl 75 content, you really should upgrade it. So is 'The Gulag' clearable with 3 out of 4 partymembers in Scaevan gear? Yes it is, but very slowly. I had to pull smaller packs of mobs, they took significantly longer to clear and my HP was more difficult to manage due to lower healing output.
So while in solo content you are absolutely free to do as you will, and I do not want you to think that you must absolutely always be 100% on top of your gear for casual/normal content, please do remember that you must try be considerate of other people while doing group content and not make the fights unnecesarily longer just to save a bit of gil.
4.4) Language barrier
Now this is kind of minor, but it can happen depending on where you play. I myself play on the Chaos datacentre, a European server. Therefore it is probably more likely than in NA servers to have partymembers with different languages, and Europe has quite a few of them. But English is still the default language that most players use, even on European servers.
If for instance a Mentor finds him or herself in a group with naught but French players, but cannot speak/write/read French properly themselves, then there is little chance of the fight going smoothly. for instance I myself can speak/write and read French somewhat decently (third language), so i was able to explain certain mechanics somewhat, but if I for isntance came onto a group of Spanish, Polish or Russian players for isntance that do not type in Englsh, then i would not be able to properly help them and i would leave.
Now there is one more reason i can think of right now why a Mentor would 'ditch' a group midfight and that is the next point.
4.5) Mentors are people too, and therefore are flawed
Mentors are people too and as such they have their good days were everything goes well and there are days were everything is miserable and their mood is at an all time low. It might be that you caught a Mentor at a bad mood and he or she lashed out at you out of frustration. Does this justify being overly salty or even being Toxic? No, of course not. By this I simply mean that it can happen to everyone.
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Now the next (few) point(s) are some tips that i would provide to both Mentors and the Mentees (is that a real word? :S)
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5) Please do communicate
Communication is key in any form of teamwork and group content. You can only explain so much with emotes and macros. It is important that Mentors explain mechanics in a clear and concise manner (no Thesis length texts like this Reddit post /cough). It is just as important for the other players to speak/type up when they have questions or are unsure. Most Mentors would be glad to address any queries in sofar as they are possible.
Some Mentors might explain the fight automatically, some might only do it when asked or after a blind wipe, and there are many forms inbetween as well. Do also speak up if you are new. If someone is new to a duty/dungeon/instance there will be a brief pop-up showing that to the others, but being 'new' to a dungeon does not necessarily mean that it is that player's first time in said content. That player might be a returner or has an alt.
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5.1) Please consider how you communicate in group content
This might seem obvious but in this game most ingame communication in roulettes will be done via typing. Therefore there is no intonation when somebody reads your text, and that is why it is very easy to misunderstand one's intent. A Mentor might be giving advice but in the way that he or she types it, the other partymembers might read it as coming from a jerk that is lording their (Burger King) Crown status over them. And of course everybody interprets text differently, even punctuations or smileys.
For instance how would you interpret the following:
a) This isn't that hard
b) This isn't that hard.
b) This isn't that hard....
c) THIS ISN'T THAT HARD
d) This isn't that hard :)
e) ThIS IsNt thAT HarD
or
a) Good job
b) Good job.
c) GOOD JOB
d) Good job :)
e) GoOd JoB
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Honestly typing and anticipating someones reaction to it can be quite a minefield and in the heat of battle, there isn't all that much time to really type out your thoughts as eloquently as you would hope.
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Now i have been typing this text for way too long, and i'm sure i might have forgotten some points to address here but I would like to offer one final point.
6) Do try to become a Mentor and experience it for yourself (genuine request, no salt).
Now this point does sound quite salty/passive aggresive (see point 5.1 :P ) but I do mean it in the most appreciative way i can. There is real joy to be had in helping out newish players. The most fun I had while doing Mentor Roulettes was when i got Sastasha (ugh how do i spell that?, the very first dungeon of the game) with all other partymembers being completely new to the game. Watching them try their first dungeon was utterly adorable and neat to keep them safe. After we made sushi of the last boss, I'd stay a bit longer and we would /sit and I would address any of their questions. Stuff like that make me feel all the warm fuzzies :3. And it is that kind of Mentor stuff that I enjoy doing, not mining my own personal salt mine while doing EX mentor stuff.
I know that the required commendations might be quite an ordeal to obtain depending on what you play as (protip: play as a healer or tank to get commends more consistently , but please do not commend-beg, it is beneath you, you are better than that I believe in you)
And once you do unlock Mentor status, jump into a Mentor Roulette and experience all it has to offer for yourselves. It might reinforce the opinions that you had before or it might offer new insight as you are on 'the other side' of the coin.
7) Closing comments
Last thing (I mean it this time), if you do start Mentor roulettes for any of the achievment rewards, please do spread it out and don't break yourselves mentally or physically. I did 50 successfull Mentor roulettes in one day at one point and I felt awful (palpitations, dizziness, fatigue,...). I know for sure that 50 roulettes per day won't kill you, but I am not so sure about 51. No fancy monocle should be worth that (but it's soooo fancy OwO).
Well then it seems you reached the end of my post. I do hope it was not too 'ranty' and that the structure was clear for you to read. I do apologise for the lack of a proper spell check but I'm pooped. If you did not read it and simply scrolled to the end. Well.... I can't really blame ya :P.
You can like or dislike it however you want, no hard feelings. I'll try to answer any questions you might have but I'm not all that used to using Reddit for posts so it might take some time (also timezones etc.)
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Do i consider myself a Great Mentor? No, not in the slightest. I have met such Great Mentors and I pale in comparison to their grossly incandescent Light.
I consider myself a Decent Mentor at best, but do not however consider myself a Bad Mentor.
Regardless of what you do in this game, be nice to each other and don't let the bad stuff get into your head, in the end it's all just a fun game :D.
Yours sincerely,
A floofy tank.

Hello guys, happy to finally be a Minolta owner.
Recently, I got incredibly lucky and managed to acquire a Brand New like Minolta X 700 from it's original owner that only had a couple of rolls go through it in the last decade or two. The camera works flawlessly, unfortunately the mirror dumper was a complete messy goo and after a first few shutter test lots of small bits got on top of the focusing screen, I know it's only cosmetic and it's for the best to leave it alone and blow a puffer in there from time to time which will eventually take care of it (hopefully). I am replacing the dumper and light seals soon as well.
However, I do know that certain issues are only a matter of time, such as capacitors dying, as well as counter problems. Is there anything I can do to at least postpone these issues or maybe other things I should be looking out for? Or is it a game of Russian roulette hah. I would highly appreciate any tips. Reason being, I am gonna be living in quite a rural area the for a year or two and planning on using it as my main camera, so I am hoping to get possible replacement parts, care tools and anything I get my hands on to make sure I can take care of it if needed.
Any tips and info would be highly appreciated! Thanks!