Here are two things to try for meeting people outside of work:
* Sports teams. You mentioned that you play basketball. Check to see if your community or nearby towns sponsor winter basketball leagues. You can usually get on a "sub list" if you don't have your own team, or sometimes the league will know of a team that needs an extra body...
* Volunteering. It sounds hokey, but it does work. You meet people with a shared interest but that are generally from a wider cross-section of society than you have at work. And often these people are pretty interesting.
* How are your grades? Yes, I know, grades are not all that important in The Grander Scheme of Life, but during "slow" job market times if you have decent (B-ish or better) grades, and particularly if your GPA in your major/minor is good, this can at least get your resume a second look.
* Do you have any previous experience? If you've had previous internships, this should help your case tremendously. If not, any relevant experience can be spun into the proper context. (For example, have you done any programming, web design, sys admin, etc anywhere on campus, either paid or volunteer? Feature this experience prominently on your resume.)
Also, have you considered doing an internship *after* you graduate? Even in slower economic times, many companies are willing to hire interns. It's a win-win: you gain valuable experience, and the company gets to "try you out" without the initial commitment. If you play your cards right, and do well, often these internships will turn into permanent positions.
There's always the graduate school option too. Going for a Masters for a couple of years is not a bad thing; in fact, in many cases it can improve your standing in the job market. If you do go, try to intern or get some other practical experience along the way.
Above all, be patient. Companies need good technical people, even (especially) now. Keep looking and you'll find something good eventually.
Now that we have DSL up and running, life is grand...but getting to that point was a small nightmare.
We ordered DSL service from Sonic.net at the beginning of July. We were told that the process would take 3 weeks, since we were doing a self-install. To make a long story short, we finally got up and running in mid-September. And if we hadn't been on the phone with Sonic.net/PacBell (the local telco and thus controller of the wires) every day, we'd probably still be waiting.
The problem seems to be that no one knows what the hell is going on, either in their own company or at the other end. Sonic.net would say that they had submitted our order, then we would call PacBell a week later to check on the status and they would say that they never received the order. This went on for a few iterations. And neither company could seem to get our name/address/telephone number correct at any point during this process. The ability to get DSL service was never a question, since we practically live on top of the switch, so it irked me that we had to waste our time calling about stupid little stuff like this.
At one point, we were given a date on which our service would be switched on; the date came and went, and when we called to ask "where's our DSL?" we were told that the switch was now full and that we might get service in the November time frame. (!!!) And on and on this went.
We were so fed up that we checked out other options; unfortunately, we got the same sort of run-around from the cable company (AT&T) here. At one point we were signed up for cable and DSL; whichever one was installed first was the one we were going to go with.
My advice is to be persistent to the point of annoyance. No one has a clue, so be a squeaky wheel and keep trying until you find someone who can be halfway helpful. Ask questions about everything; keep asking why you don't have service (and demand a good explanation!), and make sure they have your correct information on file. Also, if you're going through a third-party provider (like we did), don't believe everything they tell you--verify the information with the telco as well, as they are usually the ones who will control when you are switched on (and they sometimes knew more about the system status than the third party provider).
By the way, we're in the SF Bay area; and we did check out dslreports.com to select our provider.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmm, now where might I have seen this before?
Oh, right.... here
The editors must be napping again.....
The above comment is copied and pasted directly from the Microsoft security bulletin. Credit to the source should be given here.
Here are two things to try for meeting people outside of work:
* Sports teams. You mentioned that you play basketball. Check to see if your community or nearby towns sponsor winter basketball leagues. You can usually get on a "sub list" if you don't have your own team, or sometimes the league will know of a team that needs an extra body...
* Volunteering. It sounds hokey, but it does work. You meet people with a shared interest but that are generally from a wider cross-section of society than you have at work. And often these people are pretty interesting.
Several questions come to mind:
* How are your grades? Yes, I know, grades are not all that important in The Grander Scheme of Life, but during "slow" job market times if you have decent (B-ish or better) grades, and particularly if your GPA in your major/minor is good, this can at least get your resume a second look.
* Do you have any previous experience? If you've had previous internships, this should help your case tremendously. If not, any relevant experience can be spun into the proper context. (For example, have you done any programming, web design, sys admin, etc anywhere on campus, either paid or volunteer? Feature this experience prominently on your resume.)
Also, have you considered doing an internship *after* you graduate? Even in slower economic times, many companies are willing to hire interns. It's a win-win: you gain valuable experience, and the company gets to "try you out" without the initial commitment. If you play your cards right, and do well, often these internships will turn into permanent positions.
There's always the graduate school option too. Going for a Masters for a couple of years is not a bad thing; in fact, in many cases it can improve your standing in the job market. If you do go, try to intern or get some other practical experience along the way.
Above all, be patient. Companies need good technical people, even (especially) now. Keep looking and you'll find something good eventually.
Good luck!
Dr. Stress
2001-04-30 13:22:36
These things are always delayed. I'd be surprised if this thing actually came down in March. Heck, I'll be surprised if it happens this spring....
I wanna T-shirt!!!!!
Now that we have DSL up and running, life is grand...but getting to that point was a small nightmare.
We ordered DSL service from Sonic.net at the beginning of July. We were told that the process would take 3 weeks, since we were doing a self-install. To make a long story short, we finally got up and running in mid-September. And if we hadn't been on the phone with Sonic.net/PacBell (the local telco and thus controller of the wires) every day, we'd probably still be waiting.
The problem seems to be that no one knows what the hell is going on, either in their own company or at the other end. Sonic.net would say that they had submitted our order, then we would call PacBell a week later to check on the status and they would say that they never received the order. This went on for a few iterations. And neither company could seem to get our name/address/telephone number correct at any point during this process. The ability to get DSL service was never a question, since we practically live on top of the switch, so it irked me that we had to waste our time calling about stupid little stuff like this.
At one point, we were given a date on which our service would be switched on; the date came and went, and when we called to ask "where's our DSL?" we were told that the switch was now full and that we might get service in the November time frame. (!!!) And on and on this went.
We were so fed up that we checked out other options; unfortunately, we got the same sort of run-around from the cable company (AT&T) here. At one point we were signed up for cable and DSL; whichever one was installed first was the one we were going to go with.
My advice is to be persistent to the point of annoyance. No one has a clue, so be a squeaky wheel and keep trying until you find someone who can be halfway helpful. Ask questions about everything; keep asking why you don't have service (and demand a good explanation!), and make sure they have your correct information on file. Also, if you're going through a third-party provider (like we did), don't believe everything they tell you--verify the information with the telco as well, as they are usually the ones who will control when you are switched on (and they sometimes knew more about the system status than the third party provider).
By the way, we're in the SF Bay area; and we did check out dslreports.com to select our provider.