Computer Science graduate - what to do? (self-employment, graduate scheme, job..)

Hey,

I'm doing my CompSci degree at Durham and am graduating in June 2008. What's been bothering me an increasing amount since the start of this term is what to do after I graduate. I know I want to go into work instead of further study, but I didn't decide to do that until the start of this year.

Basically, I have loads of choices and I don't know what would be best for me in the long run. Firstly, a friend of mine in my year does web design and programming on the side - he basically is going to turn it into a full-blown business when he graduates, and he's offered to let me become a partner. It's nice and local for me (Newcastle), but I'm not sure how much money I'll earn or if it'll even take off - though he seems to know what he's doing. The other thing I'm considering is doing a graduate scheme with one of those big companies; people like GCHQ and BAE Systems seem interesting to me. However, most of these involve moving to the dark recesses of the South, and I'd really rather stay near home at least while I pay off my loans for a year or so. The final thing is something I'm truly interested in: games development. However, the only graduate-friendly company I can find is Pivotal Games in Bristol. Everywhere else wants "at least one previously completed project, sample code", blah blah blah.

I guess the question I'm asking is, what would you do? Is it worth taking one of these graduate jobs immediately, or do many companies like BAE accept people who, say, took a year or two "off" to do freelance/self-employed work as candidates for their graduate programmes? Any idea or experience on how wise it would be to go straight into self-employment after university would also be great.

Thanks,

Joe

Reply 1

little_cliff

Hi Aadvek,

I am a recent cs graduate looking for so-called graduate job. after 5 months, i still find myself unemployed. but, still trying. i dont know about game development field. i want to enter into IT as a junior database developer. but the roles advertised on the Internet are requiring some degree of work experience.

So, i give up finding database-related role, and start looking for help desk or IT support technician role, which i think is a little bit easier to get into.

But, I think you can try grad schemes too, as they are quite popular and good if you can land one.

Sorry for throwing another question at you. I have just finished my CS degree and have been accepted to study for MSc Internet technologies and Distributed systems at Durham. Could you please tell me what the course looks like? thanks a lot in advance.

Reply 2

Quady

20

little_cliff

Hi Aadvek,

I am a recent cs graduate looking for so-called graduate job. after 5 months, i still find myself unemployed. but, still trying. i dont know about game development field. i want to enter into IT as a junior database developer. but the roles advertised on the Internet are requiring some degree of work experience.

So, i give up finding database-related role, and start looking for help desk or IT support technician role, which i think is a little bit easier to get into.

But, I think you can try grad schemes too, as they are quite popular and good if you can land one.

Sorry for throwing another question at you. I have just finished my CS degree and have been accepted to study for MSc Internet technologies and Distributed systems at Durham. Could you please tell me what the course looks like? thanks a lot in advance.

Their account has one post from 18 months ago, I don't think they will be checking this...

What do you want to do afterwards?

Reply 3

little_cliff

Quady

Their account has one post from 18 months ago, I don't think they will be checking this...

What do you want to do afterwards?

Op, I should have checked the post date.

Reply 4

Aadvek

OP

Fortunately I remembered to put an email notification on this thread :P

I'm not sure about this MSc at Durham. I found the undergraduate course I did was very good, but all I know about the MSc courses is a passing comment from a fellow student about them not being particularly great. It might be worth asking someone who knows more, though.

For anyone who is curious, I decided to do an MSc course at Newcastle University in games programming. It's been good so far (continues over Summer), but there are some hiccups with it being the first year the course has fun, and there has also been some overlap with subjects I've already done. Still, if nothing else it's been a good opportunity to hone my C++/OpenGL skills and work on my personal portfolio of demos, which I'm told are necessary for finding a job in the games industry. Hopefully when I graduate in August/September I'll be in a decent position to find a games dev job.

Reply 5

bakedbeans247

20

Original post by Aadvek

Fortunately I remembered to put an email notification on this thread :P

I'm not sure about this MSc at Durham. I found the undergraduate course I did was very good, but all I know about the MSc courses is a passing comment from a fellow student about them not being particularly great. It might be worth asking someone who knows more, though.

For anyone who is curious, I decided to do an MSc course at Newcastle University in games programming. It's been good so far (continues over Summer), but there are some hiccups with it being the first year the course has fun, and there has also been some overlap with subjects I've already done. Still, if nothing else it's been a good opportunity to hone my C++/OpenGL skills and work on my personal portfolio of demos, which I'm told are necessary for finding a job in the games industry. Hopefully when I graduate in August/September I'll be in a decent position to find a games dev job.

Hey, i know this is 6 years later and so I probably won't get a reply back, but i'm interested to know did you find a job? Are you employed? :smile:

Computer Science graduate - what to do? (self-employment, graduate scheme, job..)

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