American River College’s STEM department, which serves science, technology, engineering and math students, held an event with Aruba Networks on Oct. 4 to help computer science students prepare for job hunting. Aruba Networks is a subsidiary company of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.
Nick Cross, a firmware engineer at HPE, joined computer science students at the event as a guest speaker, and answered the questions of the students to encourage them to pursue their future jobs.
“This event provides some information that students can take and apply to their next few years of college, when they search for internships, and when they pursue full-time employment,” Cross said.
According to Cross, getting an internship is one way to get into their future dream jobs.
Ryan Hermle, a computer science professor at ARC, was one of the participants; he also arranged the event between the STEM department and Aruba. He said he found the event very useful and interesting to the students.
“The students were engaged and asked great questions the whole time. The talk actually went on for almost three hours,” Hermle said. “We covered a wide array of topics, including how to be competitive with resumes and interviews, how to gain experience and make yourself pop as a candidate, faux pas to avoid, company cultures, and skills to focus on. ”
Some ways the students can be picked by the companies is to build skills and resumes, and to prepare for interviews.
“As college freshmen and sophomores, our students are in the perfect position to focus on social networking and build key skills by engaging in interesting projects,” Hermle said. “The presentation has motivated them and shown them a path to success and given them a chance to get an early start on this path.”
Hermle encouraged students who just started college to focus on networking and participating in different workshop students like. He says that is one way to be successful student.
Kevin Kirby is a computer science major who attended the workshop for STEM students. The event gave him a chance to hear more about the future jobs that Cross addressed.
“I came out of the presentation feeling more prepared to start applying for jobs in computer science,” Kirby said. “I’m looking forward to putting his advice to use as I start my career.”
Kirby said the event gave students a much better understanding of how they should get ready to work with their resumes and interviewing skills.
“Events like [these] are great for preparing students for the workforce,” Kirby said. “They help us evaluate our job hunting skills and give us a glimpse into what we can expect from a career in our field.”
