hyunwoona

  Location: Buffalo, NY (F-1/OPT fresh grad. Need H1B visa)
  Remote: No
  Willing to relocate: Yes
  Technologies: Python, C++
  Résumé/CV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e569tziibosyei0/Eric_Na-resume.pdf
  Email: [email protected]

How bad can it get to work in a not so good company for 4 months as an intern? Anyway this is the only offer I have so far(I'm waiting for another)

My biggest concern is that, I do not have experience in IT field, and thus I am not sure what I want to do. I am 'interested' in learning Android development, so I listed it on my interest, but I do not know anything much about it.

Literally, I couldn't do anything outside the CS courses(from Intro, up to OS), because I changed my major in my Junior year Spring(last April), and this probably makes me an unattractive candidate. I think I achieved a lot in a short period of time, but no company values this.

Also, it is confusing if I should tell them honestly that I just stared learning Web or Android, but I am a quick, passionate learner.

I went to high school in Korea, so your second suggestion does not apply.

Thank you!

I am going to follow what you suggested, but if you could answer some of my further questions, that would be great.

I have not been making contacts to much people. I did not even apply to positions in a daily basis. I just occasionally spent 3~4 hours applying to a bunch of companies on their career websites from either Google search or LinkedIn/Monster/Indeed etc.

I just copied and pasted almost identical cover letters always with my resume for every application (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e8rx0JiEGlpwxTa2--7rQvla...), as writing in English was very time-consuming for me, and I was busy, and mostly, I knew they would not give a damn about my cover letter attached to the application even if I had put much effort on it. Thus far I had two (one on-campus and one phone) interviews, each with a good company, but neither of them were through a web application.(I got rejected from both, though..)

I did not care too much about the applications, and I kind of messed them up. One relief is that I have not applied to companies I prefer the most, which are start-ups and mid-sized companies in NYC, and I went to NYC to attend Columbia University Engineering job fair 2 weeks ago. I talked to people there, handed my resume(the original one that did not look very good), and got business cards from 7 people from different companies. Of those 7, I had memorable conversations with two, esp. with an entry-level engineer about my Rwanda project(he would at least vaguely remember me. but they only use web languages, so I may not fit..). There were quite many good companies based in NYC in the job fair, and I have some 'stories' to talk about when I contact them.

I would like to focus on the companies I want to go to, and I want to do well this time. Of course I will have to apply for 'safety' companies, too but I will put my time and effort in applying to 40~50 companies in NYC and Silicon Valley.

Here are some of my questions. First of all, you said you contacted people in the companies. Whom did you contact (HR? Engineer? Sr. Engineer? CEO? or someone else?), and how did you find their contact info?

Second, what do you think I should include in the three sentences about myself? Language(Java/C++)? Experience? or other soft skills and characteristics? Could you show me an example?

Lastly, although you made "it as easy as possible for them to get back to me, and take the conversation from there", it is not easy for a non-native like me to write a letter that is easy and simple. Particularly what made your letter easy for them to get back to you, not compromising the amount of necessary information?

Thank you so much.

I think it was an excellent choice to change the title from researcher to research programmer.

I have heard database is important, and studying it is now one of the things I am planning to do during the winter. Thanks for the advice. I will get a certificate in either database or system, but after I start working as an intern. The reason is that I need to practice more algorithm to do well on the interview and putting more time developing something or doing coding competition will be more helpful.

Instead of going to meetups/hackathons in my area(I already missed hackathon and I did not find any tech group in meetup in my area that I can go without a car), what do you think of the option of going to Silicon Valley during the winter, taking the expensive cost into account?

Thank you so much for spending your time to give valuable advice.

For 1, I think it is a good idea, but I do not find the spot to put it. Also, should I write "legally authorized to work during semesters and vacations", or "F-1 Visa OPT/CPT work authorization"?

I did 3, 4, definitely should spend more time to do 2, 5, 6. (All the items are very pertinent. Thank you.)

NSF-funded research Research Programmer January 2013 - December 2013 Buffalo, NY

• Automated an experiment process of searching for a case to increase the known lower bound for required number of colors in a graph theory problem

• Emulated functions in Python modules(numpy and Sage) into C++ to run on systems without Python, leading to approximately a 40% speed improvement

• Wrote C++ and Python programs with my team that randomly generated hundreds of a special kind of matrices in a minute, with forced conditions to avoid repetition in an equivalent class

• Implemented edge coloring problem in C++/CPLEX by formalizing it in constraint programming, enabling hundreds of matrices to be tested for coloring per minute

• The paper is selected for presentation at MCURCSM 2013 conference on November

You said I have a decent resume content-wise, but is it possible that I am not getting an email from a single company because the resume is formatted or presented poorly?

Is it just the wording and the order of contents, or also the format(template) that need(s) to be improved?

Do you think it would look better if I change the name of the position from Researcher to Research Programmer, and focus as much as I could on the programming side(though there is not much)?

I guess it is a major flaw that I do not know Java related technologies, like Spring, (maybe) Android, and Hibernate.

I don't know about database. I haven't taken any course on database yet.

What do you think is the most urgent for me to learn and do during the 6-week winter break?

Also, if I have two options for my project: part-time contribution for one of Free Software Foundation(GNU) projects vs part-time developing an inventory management software for Rwanda and Tanzania, what do you think looks better?

Thanks!

I find 4, 5 especially helpful.

For the first not-so-superficial, I know that would be helpful, but it is not urgent. I will create and manage a personal website once I start an internship.

For the second, I am kind of open to do anything depending on what position I get, but I want to focus on Java(maybe C++). Additionally, I don't think I have much time left to start learning and become good at a new language(especially web.)

I have been waiting for almost 2 weeks, but I am not getting any email or phone call. This is exhausting and dismal...