Hey guys!

One of everyone’s biggest concerns when coming to college is what to do when you graduate! Four years is a long time to devote to school, and making sure that it is all worthwhile is very important.  Luckily, Viterbi has its own career services center which I have been fully utilize in the past few weeks!

This time of the year is all about job hunting (on top of classes and extracurriculars!) and it can be quite stressful and overwhelming.  There are events all the time to attend and then once you actually get the interviews those are about the same amount of work as studying for a test! This semester I’ve really started to utilize all the resources Viterbi offers to help you through this process.

I started the semester by revamping my resume.  I really wanted to stand out amongst other students, so I spent some time researching different layouts and making my resume a lot easier to tailor to specific job types.  Once I had a solid start, I visited the career center where they were able to tweak and fine tune my points and help me change my resume for different types of jobs. The next steps was going to career events.  The night before the career fair, which is held every semester for Viterbi students only, I attended the Viterbi Industry Networking Event.  Here, junior and senior students have the opportunity to network with a great variety of employers.  It’s a time to talk to people on a more intimate level and also speak with people you might not have. I spoke to Deloitte Consulting and actually interviewed with them this week! The next day is the Viterbi Career Fair, where about 100 companies come just to recruit engineers! All the companies there have internship or job opportunities, and often choose people they talk to at the career fair for on campus interviews that week.  Through this process I acquired a few interview spots, and also was able to clarify the process at companies where they don’t do on campus recruiting.

 

As soon as I heard back about my interviews, I raced back to the career services center to prep.  I had never done a case interview and had no idea what to expect, and they were able to walk through a few samples with me and better prepare me for the experience.  I haven’t heard back yet, but I feel very confident in my interviews this week, largely due to their help.

 

The career services center also does workshops throughout the year, and they also host the Viterbi Student Alumni Mentoring Program to connect current students to members of the Trojan Family to help guide them through their experience and act as an extra resource.  I’m really excited to begin participating in this program this semester too!  It’s great to have this resource for only Viterbi Students, and it’s never too early to start thinking about careers!

Unitl next week!

Lyssa

Lyssa Aruda-2015

Lyssa Aruda-2015

Chemical Engineering (Nanotechnology), Class of 2015, Learn more on her profile here!