1. Check your college's job postings. A lot of colleges let alumni go through the job postings.
2. Be open to what you at willing to work with. Don't put at the top of your resume, "seeking a job where I can utilize my java skills".
I work for a small software company (ERP software), and we hire 90% of our programmers direct from colleges. We also work with slightly less common technology (Progress Openedge Database, Progress 4gl code,.Net front end). Thing is, we prefer people with little/no experience, because we don't inherit as many bad habits. People adapt easier to coding standards, etc.
So if we don't look for experienced people, what are we looking for? Passion. Work Ethic. Personality. Problem solving, logic, ability to learn. Honestly specific technical skills/experience rates a lot lower.
I was in a somewhat similar situation a back in 2000, when I went to college. I ultimately choose to go to a mid size (5000 students) liberal arts college. To be honest, I've never regretted it.
In the end though, I think alot of it comes down to what you want to do. Are you heavily into math/science? If so, the more tech school might be better for you. Conversely, if you really like technology/programming etc, but aren't a huge math/science guy, the liberal arts school might suit you better.
In my case, I liked the liberal arts school I went to for one major reason. The CS department heavily pushed communication, presentations, etc. I now work for a software company, and to be honest, that is one of the areas where I stand out. I'm able to easily give training classes, presentations in front of a group of people, quick on my feet talking, etc. Did I learn all of this at college? Of course not. But it definetly helped improve my comfort zone.
One of the things I do at my job is college recruiting. We recruit from a number of colleges, that vary from fairly elite engineering school, to an average run of the mill state school. Outstanding candidates/people is what we look for. Where they got the degree doesn't really matter, at least to me.
I'm a heavy internet user. I do a fair bit of downloading files, plenty of surfing the net, some uploading, etc. Technology is something I care about greatly. On top of that, I make a fairly good living off it.
With that in mind, I point out two things:
1. Stop trying to sugar coat illegal downloading with legitimate use. Yes, there is legitimate use of P2P. WoW's patch downloader, being one of them. However those guys downing 5-10gbs (or more) of movies/music/tv a day, are using a hell of a lot of the bandwidth.
2. Internet is a service. The more you use it, it seems to make sense you'd also need to spend more. I for one would be happy to pay more for my internet service each month; if I get good a fairly decent SLA, and lower latency, and high download speeds. Do I download 10gs a day? No, but I might download a few 100 megs, and the faster that gets done, the nicer.
I don't have TW, I have some small cable company called Service Electric. I *wish* they offered tiered plans. Fact is, I want high quality internet service, and I'd be willing to pay for it. (Although within reason, of course. I'm not going to pay $200 a month for it.).
I fail to see how Microsoft's software could cost 52% of the laptop's cost.
I have to imagine they were factoring a high priced version of Vista, as well as office. None of which is mandatory. As to be honest, I'm not sure what other products MS charges for (besides OS, and Office) that the average user uses. (The average user isn't using SQL server, or Visual studio).
And there are alternatives on the Windows platform for office software. So that 52% number sounds BS.. Unless they were trying to install it on the OLPC computers.. in which case it might be 52%.
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I would recommend two things;
.Net front end). Thing is, we prefer people with little/no experience, because we don't inherit as many bad habits. People adapt easier to coding standards, etc.
1. Check your college's job postings. A lot of colleges let alumni go through the job postings.
2. Be open to what you at willing to work with. Don't put at the top of your resume, "seeking a job where I can utilize my java skills".
I work for a small software company (ERP software), and we hire 90% of our programmers direct from colleges. We also work with slightly less common technology (Progress Openedge Database, Progress 4gl code,
So if we don't look for experienced people, what are we looking for? Passion. Work Ethic. Personality. Problem solving, logic, ability to learn. Honestly specific technical skills/experience rates a lot lower.
I was in a somewhat similar situation a back in 2000, when I went to college. I ultimately choose to go to a mid size (5000 students) liberal arts college. To be honest, I've never regretted it.
In the end though, I think alot of it comes down to what you want to do. Are you heavily into math/science? If so, the more tech school might be better for you. Conversely, if you really like technology/programming etc, but aren't a huge math/science guy, the liberal arts school might suit you better.
In my case, I liked the liberal arts school I went to for one major reason. The CS department heavily pushed communication, presentations, etc. I now work for a software company, and to be honest, that is one of the areas where I stand out. I'm able to easily give training classes, presentations in front of a group of people, quick on my feet talking, etc. Did I learn all of this at college? Of course not. But it definetly helped improve my comfort zone.
One of the things I do at my job is college recruiting. We recruit from a number of colleges, that vary from fairly elite engineering school, to an average run of the mill state school. Outstanding candidates/people is what we look for. Where they got the degree doesn't really matter, at least to me.
I'm a heavy internet user. I do a fair bit of downloading files, plenty of surfing the net, some uploading, etc. Technology is something I care about greatly. On top of that, I make a fairly good living off it.
With that in mind, I point out two things:
1. Stop trying to sugar coat illegal downloading with legitimate use. Yes, there is legitimate use of P2P. WoW's patch downloader, being one of them. However those guys downing 5-10gbs (or more) of movies/music/tv a day, are using a hell of a lot of the bandwidth.
2. Internet is a service. The more you use it, it seems to make sense you'd also need to spend more. I for one would be happy to pay more for my internet service each month; if I get good a fairly decent SLA, and lower latency, and high download speeds. Do I download 10gs a day? No, but I might download a few 100 megs, and the faster that gets done, the nicer.
I don't have TW, I have some small cable company called Service Electric. I *wish* they offered tiered plans. Fact is, I want high quality internet service, and I'd be willing to pay for it. (Although within reason, of course. I'm not going to pay $200 a month for it.).
I fail to see how Microsoft's software could cost 52% of the laptop's cost. I have to imagine they were factoring a high priced version of Vista, as well as office. None of which is mandatory. As to be honest, I'm not sure what other products MS charges for (besides OS, and Office) that the average user uses. (The average user isn't using SQL server, or Visual studio). And there are alternatives on the Windows platform for office software. So that 52% number sounds BS.. Unless they were trying to install it on the OLPC computers.. in which case it might be 52%.