Comment by tobobo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tobobo | Hacker News Reader

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I'm currently a student at Wesleyan, and seeing this article was awfully surprising to me. If we really do rule the tech scene in one of the largest cities in the US, I certainly wouldn't know it from being here. Our CS department is tiny (but excellent) and is focused almost entirely on the science of computing rather than applications of the craft. I've heard of some Wesleyan grads going on to high positions in the tech world but I assumed these were exceptions to the rule.

I came to Wesleyan not because I thought it would have the best programs for what I wanted to study, but because of the student community. I have never seen such a high volume of creative output from any group of people, and it inspires me daily. If there are programmers somewhere on campus that exhibit this level of excellence and inspiration in their work, they've been quiet about it.

Jake, what advice would you have for a current Wesleyan student who wishes to be active in the tech world?

And if you're reading this, other Wesleyan students, can we hang out? I like web development a lot but I'm not smart enough to do it all by myself. Let's build stuff!

Awesome to hear that. I sort of stumbled into the digital wesleyan community when I started looking for advice on how to get into the internet space after graduation.

One of the big ideas behind digital wesleyan was to make students like you aware of the massive network that you have at your fingertips.

Wesleyan (and other schools) are only as good as students and alumni make it, so if you want to be active in the tech world, prove it by bringing the tech world to you. There is no shortage of entrepreneurs, vcs, and operators who would be happy to come back to wesleyan and preach the truth!

I graduated in 2000, when microsoft was still king. There was no CS department then, though there was a CS major that you could get through the math department. Certainly there were no ties from campus to the startup world then. I loved the major- the intro book was the amazing Wizard book, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, and classes forced students to spend a lot of time in functional languages when most schools were pushing Java. This was prescient, and has very much worked out in my favor as a web dev working in ruby and coffeescript, functional style js, etc.

Technically, the CS program is still a major given by the Math department.

And all CS professors, IIRC, are math professors.

Recent Wes grad, here.

I think a lot of the lack-of-visibility is because of the Career Center's complete-and-utter-mindless-focus on placing folks into consulting, finance, or legal jobs.

The Hollywood Mafia we've got operates almost entirely independently of the Career Center; the Film Studies department is practically their own placement agency.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the reasons are. I'm around on campus, working, if you want to build something. Lemme know.

cmhamill at wes...

Sorry you feel that way...I'm part of the career advisory board and hosted about 15 students every year to speak with execs at Bloomberg (on the tech side). I can assure you that if you want to get a job at google, etc, the career center is just as happy to help you and can make inroads there.

Would love to talk to you more about this...pcortes at wes....

If you look at the list of companies doing on-campus recruiting this year, there was only one (WH Trading) that was even vaguely related to tech/programming. Why is that? Is it because our compsci department is less well known (and smaller) than at other schools? Is it because the CRC doesn't do outreach to tech companies?

I've found the CRC really unhelpful in finding tech internships, and I assume it's the same for finding tech jobs. However, I understand it's probably not a priority given that the Econ department, for example, is about 20 times our size.

Startups don't have the resources of large companies to invest in on-campus recruiting efforts, and the CRC doesn't have the time/money to bring together a bunch of small companies. It's just easier to bring in the big players and try to employ as many students as you can.

That means it's up to you to speak up, use the tools at your disposal (linkedin, wescan) to find the people who are more than willing to help, and to make the opportunity for yourself.

As a Peer Career Advisor at the career center (and tech intern this summer in NYC), I can absolutely attest to the fact that the career center is all about helping students achieve whatever their goals are. The fact that finance and consulting are so much more prominent means more students come in asking for help with consulting and finance, but I'm sure we'll be working to encourage people to take a closer look at tech. There are so many opportunities for bright non-programmers, especially designers, that everyone needs to be aware of.

Totally agree, but the blame doesn't fully lie with the CRC. The fact is that these banks/consulting firms have a much stronger presence on all campuses, and the CRC is only reacting to that + the student demand that that outreach generates.

Yeah, of course.

I actually didn't even do comp sci at Wes—I was an anthropology major. So, there's that.

And (also re: philco below) it's not so much that the CRC won't help you with getting a tech (or CRM/anthro/museum/etc.) job; it's just that the visibility of any public events related to those things is mighty low.

Ugh, employment.

If you're interested in putting together stuff on campus and working in NYC this summer, please talk to me! - Ben Doernberg '13 bdoernberg@wes

Hey Tobobo - Wes '06 - happy to chat! Wesleyan was instrumental in my path in tech - happy to talk more about it. philip at meeteor dot com

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