Which university will give me the best chance of getting into Google?

Which university will give me the best chance of getting into Google and other FAANG companies? I am doing A-level Computer Science, Maths, Further Maths and Physics (interested in a Computer Science degree) and I was wondering what the top 5 universities are for getting placements and/or job offers from FAANG companies. I am currently interested in Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL, KCL, Bath, Bristol, and Birmingham as university choices but I am interested in knowing which are the best for getting into high paying salary jobs. I live in london so I won't need to get accomodation for UCL, KCL or Imperial which is one reason why I picked them. I'm not sure if going to those uni's in london will help me get a job at a FAANG company if I already live in london?

Reply 1

alianomad

6

Experience will. Not university

Reply 2

AimPerfectly

OP

13

Original post by alianomad

Experience will. Not university

Alright. How can I get experience while I’m still at sixth form relating to computer science? What do you recommend?

Reply 3

gcseeeman

9

Original post by AimPerfectly

Which university will give me the best chance of getting into Google and other FAANG companies? I am doing A-level Computer Science, Maths, Further Maths and Physics (interested in a Computer Science degree) and I was wondering what the top 5 universities are for getting placements and/or job offers from FAANG companies. I am currently interested in Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL, KCL, Bath, Bristol, and Birmingham as university choices but I am interested in knowing which are the best for getting into high paying salary jobs. I live in london so I won't need to get accomodation for UCL, KCL or Imperial which is one reason why I picked them. I'm not sure if going to those uni's in london will help me get a job at a FAANG company if I already live in london?

Any of those universities would fine (even KCL or Birmingham!) If you want statistics on which universities have most people at Google(/Facebook/...) you can probably find that on LinkedIn. Or maybe search and hope somebody did it for you, like this article for US universities. From this, it looks like Facebook are the most elitist, Google take a broader range of people skewing towards the top colleges, and Amazon unsurprisingly take whoever they can get/convince to work under constant fear of PIP.

Being in London might help a little. (off topic: If you have a choice, and COVID doesn't get in the way, I suggest you seriously consider living in university accommodation, at least in first year.)

Original post by AimPerfectly

Alright. How can I get experience while I’m still at sixth form relating to computer science? What do you recommend?

As alianomad alluded to (although I dislike their use of the word "experience" here, because to me it implies a job), no university is sufficient (or necessary) for a FAANG job.

For what you can do, I hope you have at least done some programming (if not, why on earth are you set on FAANG??) You should do something useful or interesting with it. Have some annoying repetitive task? Try and automate it away. Enjoy problem solving or maths? Try Project Euler, HackerRank, Codewars, or one of dozens of other places for such problems. (This will be really useful for FAANG interviews!)

Whatever you do, just spent time coding! (Enjoying this, rather than just wanting to earn money down the line, will definitely help motivation.) Fluency in at least one language is a minimum requirement for getting into FAANG. A CS degree alone will certainly not provide this.

Oh, by the way, FAANG jobs aren't the highest paying graduate software jobs. Look into places like Jane Street if money is what matters to you (but then, if money is what motivates you, I don't expect you to handle the grind that getting into FAANG or other such companies entails).

Reply 4

CarolLes828

7

Google and similar places don’t just hire on your grades but it can help. They confirmed this in a interview it’s about how dedicated you are and experience.
You could have failed all your GCSEs and never went to college or further and work in a place like that if you have the willpower to show you’re capable of the job.

If you’re looking to get experience ask them for it. Email a few companies or their secretaries saying you’ll do free work in exchange for experience for X weeks and boom. It helps you out in future.

Which university will give me the best chance of getting into Google?

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