For what it’s worth, I’ll soon be looking for new PhD students to join our lab in Belgium (Europe). It’s a great, dynamic environment, and we work on exciting problems in 3D and computer vision. Feel free to reach out if you think it could be a good fit!
Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
221–230 of 247 posts
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#222I graduated 3 years ago in a similar situation and this helped me Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/
I can't thank you enough for providing that link and bringing it to my attention.
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
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Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
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Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
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Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#226I graduated from Mit Sloan with an MBA degree more than 10 years ago. Like you I was it sounds like a first generation college student. MIT Sloan was absolutely a nightmare when it came to helping me and other students find jobs. It sounds like the broader school is an equal disaster. I know from working with people at Sloan on a continued basis that the school (ie the MIT Sloan CDO or career development office) continues to be atrocious and perhaps the rest of MIT is the same. I can help you by giving you some feedback on your resume and a chat if you want. Derus @ alum.mit.edu
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Expect that you will meet many people younger than you who will be at your financial level because they graduated post-recovery." Yep, the people who graduated about 3-4 years ago are all making more than I do after more than a decade. It seems like that's just how it works.
Huh. This is making me realize that perhaps my situation is more bizarre and unstable than I realize... How uncommon is it for someone with no highschool diploma (GED), or college diploma to get a job as a software engineer at a Fortune 500 company? Am I completely fucked if I ever lose this job? It's my second SE job... Like OP may have been hinting at, I had a really fucked up family situation and this path was the…
I'm in the market now and I honestly don't think anyone even looks at the education section of the resume if there is applicable work experience following it. After 10+ interviews in the past couple of months, education hasn't been mentioned once in an interview, and my unofficial transcripts have been requested one time prior to and interview.
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#228SiPhox is a yc company in near MIT and we are hiring sw engineers :)
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#229Honestly, I'll say this as someone who goes to Harvard. If you go to schools very prestigious schools like Harvard, MIT, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get a decent job after graduation.
The market is tough, and Harvard and MIT grads might be getting jobs at FAANG and Quant left and right like they did a couple of years ago, but if you do a lot of leetcode and prepare for interviews properly, you should be able to find something decent.
The fact is there's still a good number of companies that will give any Harvard or MIT student an interview as long as they have some experience on their resume. Prestigous internships or not; the school name still gives you an advantage.
The fact that you're getting interviews and not passing means that there's something you could probably be doing.
All we know is that you've built side projects. But especially in the new grad market, companies are working for work experience, not some toy apps that you just built for your friends.
How many leetcode problems did you do? A lot of people are struggling to just even get interviews. If you're getting interviews, and not passing, that likely means there's something you could be doing.
But let me tell you a story. There's a guy I know from a top school (one of Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford) who didn't get their junior internship until May last year. Their internship wasn't prestigious, and none of their internships or jobs during their college career were prestigious. He almost ended up with no internship.
For new grad applications, he didn't even apply with referrals. He didn't get as many interviews as others who did internships at Big Tech/FAANG, but he did get some interviews.
He did 500+ Leetcode problems throughout the summer and fall, and got an offer from Amazon and a unicorn startup. He also got an offer from another big tech company and make the hiring manager round at another big tech company (didn't move forward because he already accepted another offer), which many other students, who had more prestigious internships, failed.
The point is at a school like MIT, you and your friends should be able to get a job. You have access to any new grad job; not just FAANG, but also exclusive startups.
Luck does play a part, but we have to be real.
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Levels.fyi has L5 at Amazon making $150k base, $220k TC. You might not be Jeff Dean or Andrej Karpathy but there's only two of them. None of us are. That's not remotely subhuman failure. https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/systems-dev...
I make more than $220k now but OP 100% makes closer to $800K+ He definitely doesn't think people like me are human.
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