NEW: Drop-In Office Hours at Computer Sciences
EVERY Wednesday from 1:00pm – 4:00pm, stop by the CS Undergraduate Advising space at the 4200 offices of the Computer Sciences building for drop-in career advising with Beth Karabin. You can get help with your resume, exploring career options, job or internship search, and any questions you might have about careers in Tech, Data & Analytics – all with no appointment needed!
Fall 2021 Events
Interviewing Tips and Tools for L&S Students
Group Advising: Negotiating Offers for Tech Students
Taste of Success: Finance, Data, & Analysis
Careers with Statistics: Actuarial Science
Careers with Geography: Cartography, GIS & Data Analysis
Taste of Success: Data Science & Analytics
Myths about Careers in Tech, Data, & Analytics
There can be a lot of misconceptions about careers in this field, so it’s good to be aware of the most common ones. Click the myths below to read more about the truth behind the myth.
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"I must major or get a certificate in Computer Science if I want to pursue a career in technology, data, and analytics."
No, not necessarily! You can major in anything and still work in the technology or data field as long as you have the experience to meet the employer’s qualifications for the job/internship!
If you are a student on a F-1 visa, let’s chat more about this situation though because the response to this myth is a little bit more complex.
"I must go to graduate school to pursue a career in technology, data, and analytics."
It depends on the job you want! Whether you must go to graduate school would depend on the situation such as whether the position you want to be in will require a graduate degree. For example, if you want to be a Data Analyst, in general, you will not have to go to graduate school. However, if you wanted to be a Data Scientist, then you will have to go to graduate school since most employers require a master’s degree or PhD.
"I’m a sophomore who hasn’t secured an internship yet. Help, I’m so behind!"
You are not behind! Ideally, securing an internship should happen during your junior year. However, securing an internship could happen anytime during your college experience as well. And yes, it could even happen during your senior year when you are about to graduate. Even if you are not able to secure an internship as a first year or sophomore, you can always build your experiences (i.e. working a part time job, volunteering, creating projects) to be more marketable the next time you apply!
"I’m a first year student and so I won’t be able to secure a technology/data internship."
There are opportunities out there for you. Employers tend to recruit juniors for their internships. However, that doesn’t mean that first year students won’t be able to secure an internship. There are employers, such as Microsoft, who offer internship programs specifically for first years and sophomores. In addition, networking could also support first year students (and really any year) with their internship search!
"I must accept or decline an offer from an employer by the deadline (i.e. 1 week) they give me."
No, not necessarily. According to the UW-Madison Employer Recruitment Policies, students within L&S could potentially have up to 4 weeks to make a decision on whether they will accept or decline an offer. Please note, this policy is a recommendation for employers who recruit at UW-Madison.
"It is okay to accept an internship/job offer and then continue to interview for other positions."
You probably shouldn’t. Once you accept an internship/job offer, our recommendation is to avoid interviewing for a new position. It’s usually not a good idea to go back to an employer, who you’ve accepted their offer, and say you can’t do their internship anymore because you have a new offer.
Explore Career Paths
The market for technology, data, and analytics is expanding rapidly. Your L&S degree could lead to a career in big data, GIS, cartography, actuarial science, cyber security, database management, IT support, machine learning, programming, web development and more. Check out the Career Guides below for more information about the many different paths available within this field.
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Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Resources
State Cartographer’s Office: https://www.sco.wisc.edu/jobs/
American Association of Geographers: https://jobs.aag.org/
Federal Government Agency GIS jobs: https://www.usajobs.gov/
GIS Careers: http://giscareers.com/
GIS Jobs: https://www.gisjobs.com/
ESRI: https://www.esri.com/en-us/about/careers/main
Google Earth: https://careers.google.com/#_ga=2.235464644.452480644.1517599446-1903018612.1517599446
GIS Volunteer Opportunities: https://www.giscorps.org/
Computer Science (CS) Resources
DICE: https://www.dice.com/
Jobs in Social Media: https://www.jobsinsocialmedia.com/
Just Tech Jobs: http://www.justtechjobs.com/
IEEE Computer Society Job board: https://jobs.computer.org/
Start-up Job Board- Angel List: https://angel.co/
Y-Combinator: https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs
Career Builder: https://www.careerbuilder.com/
International Student Resources
Ask a Badger
Employment of computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 12 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations. These occupations are expected to add about 488,500 new jobs, from about 3.9 million jobs to about 4.4 million jobs from 2014 to 2024.
OOH, US Department of Labor
Get A Job Or Internship
Ready to find a job or internship? Here, you’ll find many resources to help you apply to jobs and internships in this industry as well as view featured employers that may be helpful on your path to success!
Microinternships
While searching for a job or internship, check out microinternships for a great way to get real work experience. These short-term, professional, and paid opportunities can be completed in a matter of hours.
Offered through the Parker Dewey platform, these opportunities also allow you to demonstrate your skills while working on professional projects from real employers. Given the current state of things, tasks can often be carried out remotely.
CS
CS
Dig Deeper
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Positions & Salary Information
Library Information & Sciences
Library Job Site: I need a Library Job: http://inalj.com/
Higher Ed Jobs: higheredjobs.com
Library Careers: http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/
Library Science List: http://librarysciencelist.com/
Edu Cause Career Center: http://jobs.educause.edu/jobs
Online resources to develop tech skills
Internship & Job Resources
Capital One’s CODA (non-CS major seniors who want to do software development/engineering)
Capital One’s Analytics Program (new grads for data analytics)
Google Summer Code (students get to spend their summer break writing code and learning about open source development while earning a stipend; accepted students work with a mentor).
Facebook University for Engineering (first and second-year students)
Explore Microsoft (first and second-year students)
RISE-Capgemini Leadership Program (seniors interested in tech consulting)
Code2040 Fellows Program (for Black and LatinX students; 9-week program during the summer in Silicon Valley where students get to work with top tech companies where they will also be focusing on racial equity advocacy work)
Career Forum (CFN)-organizer of the largest career fair for Japanese-English bilingual students and professionals in Boston
(tech startups) https://www.builtinchicago.org/
Government related tech opportunities: FBI, CIA, Contractors, Think Tanks
Rewriting the Code (fellowship program for women in tech)
YWeb (employment service program that trains women and people of color to become web developers/designers! The program includes 400 hours of intensive technical training and students who complete this program will enter a paid internship.)
Scholarships
Lime Scholarships (scholarships for students with disabilities)
Google Lime Scholarship (CS, full-time students)
PwC Lime Scholarship (students interested in tech and business)
Disney Data Analytics Scholarship Program: ( Disney Data & Analytics Women offers 4 scholarships to attend a 2-day Disney Data & Analytics Conference in Orlando during August 20-21, 2019)
King Women in Games Scholarship https://king.com/pl/jobs/students?locations=all&opportunities=all
Professional Organizations
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) UW Madison Student Chapter:
https://win.wisc.edu/organization/ieee
Association for Computing Machinery: https://www.acm.org/
Geospatial Information and Technology Association: https://www.gita.org/
The American Geographical Society: http://americangeo.org/
URISA – Fostering Excellence in GIS: http://www.urisa.org/index.php
Networking / How to stay updated in the field
Meetups
https://www.dataquest.io/blog/
Medium (technology)
Madhacks (coding competitions)
Hackathons nationally and internationally (coding competitions)
Kaggle (data competitions)
Machinehack (data competitions)
The Technical Interview
Featured Employers
CUNA MUTUAL GROUP
Since their founding in 1935 by credit union pioneers, CUNA Mutual Group has been committed to improving the quality of life in the communities where our employees live and work and dedicated to helping customers achieve financial success.
Jobs & Internships on Handshake
Set up your profile in Handshake to take care of everything you need to explore career events, manage your campus interviews and apply to jobs and internships from 200,000+ employers around the country.
GitHub is a development platform inspired by the way you work. From open source to business, you can host and review code, manage projects, and build software alongside 40 million developers.
Use GitHub to land a job
SuccessWorks now offers an exciting resource for you called Big Interview. This great tool helps you learn, practice, and analyze your interviewing skills.
It’s easy to sign up, it’s free, so check it out and help your future self ace your next interview!
Looking to get started now? We have made a specialized assignment for you to practice the four most common interview questions. Just go to the “Assignments Tab” and enter code: 3237e2
Check out these courses
PROGRAMMING I
Prerequisites: Satisfied Quantitative Reasoning (QR) A requirement
Learn the process of incrementally developing small (200-500 lines) programs along with the fundamental Computer Science topics. These topics include: problem abstraction and decomposition, the edit-compile-run cycle, using variables of primitive and more complex data types, conditional and loop-based flow control, basic testing and debugging techniques, how to define and call functions (methods), and IO processing techniques. Also teaches and reinforces good programming practices including the use of a consistent style, and meaningful documentation. Intended for students who have no prior programming experience.
INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL INFORMATION
Prerequisites: Junior Standing
This entry-level course prepares students to use information technologies to solve problems and help people through implementing information infrastructures such as websites, databases and metadata. Students will explore information access, information representation, usability and information policy issues, and increase their understanding of the social impacts and social shaping of information infrastructures.
SURVEY OF SOCIOLOGY
Prerequisites: Satisfied Communications A requirement; not open to students who have taken SOC 181 or C&E SOC/SOC 211
Introduction to the field of American sociology, its subfields and specialized areas of research, theoretical traditions and research methods. Gateway to advanced courses in sociology.