Computer science students are lucky...

CS students are lucky: they don’t have to land a placement/internship at a tech company to gain work experience while still in Uni. They can showcase their ability in a way that most companies will respect through:

1.Side projects - Creating apps they can showcase through Github etc
2.Open source – Contributing to open source projects
3.Stack Overflow – gaining a reputation through asking and answering questions
4.Local business – offer to make an application for a local business and end up with both a showcase-able app and a reference for your CV

#4 is the subject matter for my MBA dissertation. I haven’t actually heard of someone doing this, but it just sounds logical to me and I want to test it out. I’ve got a few small businesses willing to participate, I just need to find CS students who think this is something worth test driving…

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 1

niteninja1

Original post by bn1

CS students are lucky: they don’t have to land a placement/internship at a tech company to gain work experience while still in Uni. They can showcase their ability through:

1. Side projects - Creating apps they can showcase through Github etc
2. Open source – Contributing to open source projects
3. Stack Overflow – gaining a reputation through asking and answering questions
4. Local business – offer to make an application for a local business and end up with both a showcase-able app and a reference for your CV

#4 is the subject matter for my MBA dissertation. I haven’t actually heard of someone doing this, but it just sounds logical to me and I want to test it out. I’ve got a few small businesses willing to participate, I just need to find CS students who think this is something worth test driving…

Southdevon college in Torbay make all CS students on their foundation degree create a project for a local business.

Also many universities still offer placements at my uni Brunel it is all but mandatory but they find you a placement.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 2

bn1

Original post by niteninja1

That's interesting thanks for sharing that! I'll try and reach out to the peeps at Southdevon College.

I don't have any direct experience or first hand accounts of placements, but I wonder if you are just given sundry assignments on a big project, compared to going through the entire creative process with a local business - from designing to building an MVP and getting to test it out in a commercial environment.

And this again speaks to the good fortune of CS students: they can do both!