Undergraduate Growth Guide

Four-Year University Roadmap & Undergraduate Growth Guide

This is a letter I wrote to the underclassmen of our university two years after graduating with my bachelor’s degree, and it can also serve as a growth counseling guide.
It covers how computer science and tech-related majors can grow year by year, prepare for competitions, and stand out in job hunting and employment.
The tone might be a bit intense, but these are all honest truths. Please be understanding, and keep fighting! 💪🏻
Wishing you a fulfilling, regret-free, and memory-filled college life.

Experience Campus Recruitment Early

Welcome to try the Campus Recruitment Simulator mini-program

Provides the following features for students in information/IT-related majors:

• Direction selection driven by interest + skills + market demand
• Overviews, skill requirements, salary levels, and campus recruitment preparation advice for 20+ technical and non-technical directions
• Resume builder that guides you to fill in key fields to enhance resume value, exportable to Markdown format
• Mock interviews with questions spanning all directions and difficulty levels
• Resume records and a collection of mistaken questions from mock interviews

Take campus recruitment as the ultimate goal: prepare early, get a head start.

Preface

Things to Know Before Reading This Article

You need to accept the following points to read this article:

• This article is intended for students whose goal is to work in computer-related industries after graduation.
• The ultimate destination after leaving school is still employment; no matter how you evade reality, the destination remains employment.
• College lasts for only three years; awaken and prepare as early as possible.
• Avoid focusing solely on GPA; while raising your GPA, you also need to pay attention to specialization direction and hands-on experience.
• Algorithms, data structures, personal project experience, competition achievements, and interview skills are the real hard skills.
• Winning competitions and entering major internet companies both involve learnable techniques and strategies.
• Life-changing opportunities are given only to those who are determined and aware of their desire to change.
• If you want returns, first think about your own actions: Have you put in the necessary effort? Have you created value for the organization?
• If you want to ask me or senior students for help, do it as early as possible while you can still be helped.
• If you feel you are beyond help, then work your way up from scratch to make up for what you missed.
• Don’t think it’s too late; I have successfully mentored a senior student who worked like crazy and pulled off a miraculous comeback. Teaching journal for July-September (2 months)
• Cross-validation: If you have doubts about the text below, please refer to Group A BUAA Campus Recruitment Recording 20210206, extraction code k9fv; Group A Campus Recruitment Interview Guide 20210303, extraction code: nb7b. Of course, this article was written in 2018; although old, it is still valid.

Think Carefully

Why should big tech companies hire you instead of candidates from 985/211 universities or master’s graduates? The reality is that if they want to, they can snatch up all the top offers. I hope this question stays on your mind throughout your student years.

Freshman Year

What Kind of School Did I Get Into?

Want to get into big tech relying solely on what you learn in class? Almost impossible!
Think about what kind of companies come to our institute of technology to recruit every year—have their products ever appeared on your phone?
985/211 universities are just across the street from Zhongguancun, sharing the same administrative district with major tech giants and competition venues—so where are you?
You can either follow classes normally, slack off for four years, repeat your senior year of high school, or work alongside your peers to practice, refine skills, and carve out a path through the competition of 985, 211, and master’s graduates to change your life.
Some big tech companies have restricted educational background requirements to 985/211 schools. You can call it escalating involution or hiring discrimination, but you cannot reverse the trend of elite-focused campus hiring. Of course, you can also become an elite student yourself who outperforms those from 985/211 universities.

Don’t Fail Courses

You can read your favorite technical books or write code during class, but definitely do not fail any courses during freshman year.
Failing courses in freshman year makes it hard to catch up later. Initially, all freshmen start at about the same baseline, but a failed course immediately pulls you behind.

Master C, C++, and Introduction to Computer Science at All Costs

If you can’t even tackle the most basic courses, how can you expect to enter the industry and earn a high salary? Stop dreaming. These subjects will be your core foundational mindset for the future.
Read the textbooks word by word. For course projects, don’t just stick strictly to what the teacher requires—figure out what you want to build and find ways to make it happen.

Join the ACM Lab and Network Management Center Clubs

These two are the organizations closest to the internet industry at our institute. Generation after generation of senior students have poured endless dreams, youth, friendship, and effort into them.
After joining, staying committed, and creating value, the returns are substantial. Not only will upperclassmen guide your path, but many big tech companies will also offer internal referrals.
Of course, if you don’t stick around to improve yourself and create value for the organization, don’t even dream about internal referrals.

Connect More with Senior Students

For the same reasons as above, senior students will provide you with projects, competitions, employment advice, and opportunities. Be sure to seize them.
Where can you find senior students? Refer to the previous point.

Take a Long-Term View

Make sure to take a long-term view. Everything you do and decide now should benefit your future self over the next few years and decades.
Whether it’s job-hopping or working hard in the future, don’t just focus on the short term or let others drag you around. Think carefully about your future.
Besides, investing in yourself is always a guaranteed gain.

Direction Research

What freshmen lack least is time and opportunities to trial and error. It is a great time to find your direction! You can search recruitment websites to see how many directions are hiring in the CS field and check the job posting volumes—for example, Java and VB definitely differ in hiring rates and salary levels. Of course, attending graduate school is also a valid direction.

Choose a Direction That Interests You

What everyone needs to understand is that even after graduating, it’s impossible to master every subject and direction completely. Most future job hunting will focus on a specific track. This is just like choosing a class in an online game: each class has a different focus, but to defeat the boss, you must spend countless hours practicing and gaining achievements in your chosen role. That boss is the future campus recruitment, while practice and achievements correspond to personal side projects and competitions above the university level.
The most troublesome and headache-inducing case is when someone comes to me at the very end of junior year asking for help recommending a direction, without even having a decent resume. The resume sent over lacks any clear focus. Think about what you were doing for the past three years before reaching out to me.

Freshman Summer and Winter Vacations

Personal Projects

Any project is fine, as long as you build a complete project independently—no matter how primitive it is, it’s acceptable.
While exploring, you will realize which direction you want to develop in for the future, and you will even have the time capital to change your mind.
At this stage, it serves to cultivate engineering thinking and to take the lead throughout your college years.

Explore the Selected Direction

As mentioned, all freshmen start out the same: taking the same classes and learning the same fundamentals.
So how do you get a head start in the first semester of sophomore year to gain more resources, popularity, and opportunities? The answer lies in these two vacations.
Please make sure to spend as much time as possible hands-on coding to explore your chosen direction during these two breaks.
Never just grind textbooks. For instance, with Git usage, after starting work you only use around 5 commands back and forth, and for anything else you can just Google it. In my second semester of freshman year, I brought home a giant Git Cookbook from the library; similar foolish moves included Python Cookbook. Such thick books offer no benefit other than discouraging you.

The correct way to explore is: quick onboarding, rapid experimentation, continuously cycling through debugging, running, fixing, reflecting, debugging, running, fixing… until it works.

Single-stepping through code, looking up references, and copying code are not shameful.

Prepare in Advance

Whether for competitions or employment, prepare your skills and engineering projects in advance.
When the time comes, you will be able to seize future opportunities immediately.
A capability even more important than making choices is seizing opportunities in a timely manner. Of course, whether to seize an opportunity or not is also a choice.

GitHub

GitHub is your project practice log platform and will serve as your Resume #0 in the future.
The earlier you create a GitHub account and push every project and piece of code to it so that green contribution dots cover GitHub, the more you will thank me after the second semester of junior year.
Git usage is very simple: git add/commit/push/pull/checkout.

Algorithm Practice

This was the general training content for ACM in 2013. The mandatory requirements for Class of 2012 ACM members were:
Register an HDU account
Complete problems 2001-2025; if finished, extend to problem 2060
Once done with the above, work on POJ Basic Problems
For details, please see Email Archive

Engineering Practice

This was the training content for the 2013 ACM Development Team. Web development is relatively easy to get started with for building complete projects, and it can be applied to daily development, competitions, and graduation projects.
The training for Class of 2012 ACM volunteer development team members was:

• Install Ubuntu
• Learn basic Linux command usages
• Interaction between C and Shell (Optional)
• Install and use MySQL (Once you master MySQL, course projects later feel like playing with cheats ——by Banzhuan)
• Understand SQL (table creation, CRUD operations)
• Install LAMP stack (getting started with PHP is relatively fast)
• PHP basics
• Interaction between PHP and MySQL
• HTML, CSS, JS
  For details, please see Email Archive

Pay Attention to Competition Information

Some information requires exploring on your own; taking part only in intra-school competitions won’t make you competitive.
Chinese Computer Design Contest for College Students
ACM/ICPC
52jingsai.com (I Love Competitions)

Engineering Direction Summer Training Content for Class of 2017
2018 Summer Engineering Direction Training pdf

Class of 2012 ACM Training Routine

Email Archive

Sophomore Year - 1st Semester

Why Split Sophomore Year into Two Semesters?

In freshman year, if you honestly avoid failing courses and learn basic subjects well, the gap between students is not very large.
The gap in skill levels between students widens during sophomore year.

Still Don’t Know Your Direction?

Topic: Finding Your Direction, Competition Tips, and Coding Experience.
Materials written during junior year that still make sense today.
PPT and Resource Package Link

Course Correction

In freshman year, my designated direction was to take the CCIE exam, become a network engineer, and then take the postgraduate exam to enter Northeastern University.
Through a year of practice and reflection in freshman year, I realized I preferred creative development work, and an R&D engineer only needs a low-spec computer running Ubuntu. So I adjusted my path toward R&D engineering. Of course, R&D engineering has various sub-branches; since I was responsible for developing the lab’s Online Judge (OJ) system, I chose PHP. Over the next two years, I completely unlocked the [Skill Tree] related to PHP.
Even though I had bought a lot of books to prepare for CCIE earlier, I didn’t feel bad about the waste. Running to the end in a direction you aren’t good at or don’t like makes you either a deity, a masochist, or insane.

Read Alibaba’s Internal Referral Reply Letter & Recognize Employment Realities

How could the employment situation in front of you be optimistic? Easily landing a high-paying internet job without doing anything? Stop joking!
Only by clearly seeing what hell looks like early on can you gain the determination to break through it.
Link

An ACM Fighting History of a Non-Key University

Hard work never betrays anyone
An article that inspired me and countless ACMers
The original URL may load slowly, Cnblogs Link

Get Ready to Battle Everywhere in Sophomore Year!

Sophomore year is the golden period for participating in major competitions.
Training with all your might, preparing, and competing will definitely become some of the most precious memories of your life.
Don’t you want to stand at the top of national competitions like a cheat-code protagonist? Don’t you want to prepare for competitions with lifelong friends giving your all?
You think relying on campus-level competitions will let you battle it out with students from 985 and 211 universities? Too naive.

Important Competitions in Sophomore Year (1st Semester)

October: E-Commerce & Internet Innovation Contest

Usually participated in together with liberal arts students, who frequently seek out CS majors.

November: ACM Campus Contest

So train hard during freshman summer break, hey! Training and the campus contest directly affect slots for next year’s provincial contests in May/June and the Northeast Four-Province Contest.
Of course, estimating the school’s participation quotas…
Besides, traveling for competitions at public expense—isn’t that awesome!

Reading Only Textbooks Doesn’t Count as Reading Books

Relying solely on textbooks is far from enough; even now, I still have a mountain of things to learn.
Psychology might pull you back when you’re on the verge of breaking down.
History provides guiding principles for your growth methodology and planning.
Novels introduce shades of gray into your otherwise black-and-white world.
Languages allow you to step onto the global stage in the future with broader options.
Sheet music enables you to hold your own rhythm amid tedious daily routines.

Independent Thinking

Don’t just stare at textbooks and lectures; align your efforts toward the tech stack you want to delve into.
Try to use technologies you want to learn for course assignments, provided you meet the instructor’s requirements.
For example, in a database design course, you can DIY a DBMS database management system.
For example, in a computer network design course, you can use WebSocket to build a chatroom with a fancy UI.
Not only will you become proficient in your tech stack, but using these projects for competitions or graduation design later will also be very convenient.
Always wanting to build generic “X Management Systems” has no future!

Project Inspiration

Projects generally originate from three scenarios: something you want to build / something others ask you to build / dissatisfaction with the current status quo that you want to improve.
When you lack inspiration, reflect on whether your scope of vision is limited and whether you haven’t paid attention to the industry for too long.

Keep Developing

Project practice should follow one after another—anything works—just don’t stop developing, exploring, or pushing code to GitHub.
If you stop growing, how will you compete against 985 and 211 students in junior year!
Projects are crucial, but data structures and algorithms also require practice, as competitions and future interviews both demand algorithm and data structure knowledge. You can practice by taking part in mock contests on CF (CodeForces) or practicing on HDU.

Try Using Ubuntu as Your Daily Operating System

If you position yourself as a backend engineer, use Linux as your daily operating system.
Since most servers in internet companies run Linux, getting familiar with command-line operations brings nothing but benefits, and it even serves as a cure for online gaming addiction (except for Steam).

Sophomore Winter Vacation

Find Your Positioning on Job Boards and Big Tech Recruitment Websites

Recruitment websites essentially outline the scope of your “final exam”: see which direction interests you, check job market trends and skill requirements, and get a general understanding.
What to do next? Prepare according to the companies’ required scopes! Learn whatever skills are needed.

Don’t Stop Project Practice

Sophomore Year - 2nd Semester

Important Competitions in Sophomore Year (2nd Semester)

April: Material Submission for Chinese Computer Design Contest for College Students

So, prepare well ahead of time; having projects you can show off is the only way to seize opportunities.
Materials package from my back-to-back solo national championship wins over two years:
2014 Trinity Information Club Construction Suite Link
2015 High-Performance Real-Time Collaborative Universal Database Manager Link
If it’s too late to submit a PPT, that’s fine—build a webpage with turnable pages and image backgrounds, host it on a server, and just open a browser and type the URL during the presentation. As long as you don’t panic, there are plenty of workarounds.
Watch Apple WWDC keynotes and PPTs from over the years, and learn from how experts on stage present their ideas and structure their slides.
Read The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs; it will also come in handy after starting work when sharing technical knowledge or presenting for promotion. Don’t be afraid to showcase yourself.

April: ACM Campus Contest

The most crucial campus contest, determining eligibility for provincial and Northeast regional contests.

May: ACM Provincial Contest

June: ACM Northeast Four-Province Contest

If it still exists, of course.

June: Provincial Round of Chinese Computer Design Contest for College Students

July/August: National Round of Chinese Computer Design Contest for College Students

Sophomore Summer Vacation

Prepare the Mindset for Interviews

You are half a year away from joining the internship prep force.
What are your current capabilities?
Don’t know? Then write a resume yourself using the STAR principle and see how it turns out!
Then compare it with job posting sites and big tech career portals.
I recommend checking out the reports and materials I prepared when I returned to school in ‘17 and ‘18 for rising seniors: 20170609 Programming for the Future, 20180614 Talking CS
Preparing early has its perks; the first semester of junior year is your last window of opportunity—preparing in senior year will be too late.
Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1fuofdPMdw95vfFrRASQBmA Password: af8s

A Top Tech Student’s 2018 CS Internship and Autumn Recruitment Experience

A top student’s valuable job hunting experience article
Pay attention to the timeline, and you will understand why I say college lasts only three years.

Continue Preparing Project Experience in Your Chosen Direction

This applies to both job seekers and graduate school applicants.
Job seeking goes without saying; graduate entrance exams have re-examinations (interviews), and having practical experience makes re-examinations much easier.
Don’t forget that you even have to pick a research direction before graduate admission. How can you secure an advisor in your interest direction at the earliest moment before the initial exam, instead of hesitating for ages or dragging it out until the end of your first graduate year without making a choice?

Junior Year - 1st Semester

Reflect on Job Hunting vs. Postgraduate Studies

Whether taking postgraduate exams or seeking employment, advance preparation and information gathering are required.
Why take postgraduate entrance exams?
If the answer is to deepen knowledge in a direction of interest, change environments, experience a higher-tier institution, pursue academic research interests, follow a clear future plan, or expand your network, I fully support it.
If it’s to escape reality, feeling inadequate, or mindlessly following the crowd, this should be avoided.
Are you sure your undergraduate history won’t repeat itself?
Are you sure you can reach the average undergraduate level after graduating with a master’s?
The reality is that master’s graduates and bachelor’s graduates at the same skill level enter at the same job rank, with the master’s monthly salary being only about 3K higher (2016 level).

Figure Out Your Behavioral Patterns

A behavioral pattern aligned with your biological clock and memory retention will yield twice the results with half the effort. Of course, everyone’s pattern is different; you have to observe, record, and experiment yourself to identify a suitable pattern.
To give my own example:
Cannot stay up late, suited for waking up early to study (went to bed at 10 PM and woke up at 4 AM during postgraduate exam prep)
Cannot study in parallel, must prepare one subject at a time in large blocks of time (spending months on a single subject until fully mastering it)
Poor memory retention, relying on primitive handwritten notes (the most painful issue)
Summarize quick-recall notes to review everything rapidly in 3 hours to reinforce memory
Studying continuously for one hour yields optimal results, followed by a 20-minute break to recharge

Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

When studying, never look at other people’s progress as a reference. You’re already anxious enough and feeling like trash destined to fail; looking at others will only make your mindset completely collapse. So until you achieve your goal, absolutely do not compare yourself to others. You have your own time zone, you have your own plan—just keep making steady progress.
Having grown up constantly being compared to others, I deeply understand the immense negative impact of comparison. I will never approach juniors or friends with an attitude of comparison.

Be Honest with Yourself, Don’t Run Away

How much do you actually know right now? Can you get an offer? How much is left for you to learn?
Often, the parts you run away from are the most important ones. If you notice a tendency to avoid something, hold your breath and tackle it head-on. I’m also holding my nose and forcing myself through this.
But if you can find a way to turn the things you’re avoiding into an interest, it gets a bit easier.

Save Your Energy and Time

Remember, the ultimate beneficiaries of all marketing tactics are always the capitalists. The cheap promo events you participate in just to save a few cents or bucks are nowhere near as important as the energy and time you spend. This applies to all situations—if you want to refute it, feel free to find your own counterexample.
It’s normal for older people with lots of free time to save money, but your time is genuinely way too precious. You could use it for sleep, dating, hanging out with friends, relaxing, or studying. It would be a huge waste to spend your entire day trapped in marketing schemes.
Also, don’t disturb your friends, chat groups, or social feed for the sake of a few bucks. It’s honestly way too low-class.

Break After Junior Year First Semester

Prepare Interview Skills

Refine your resume once again. If your resume is completely blank at this point… then your only choice is to desperately accelerate building your essential skills—refer to the 80/20 rule.
Engineering ability is obviously important, but interviewing is also test-taking. Grit your teeth and memorize these three books: Cracking the Coding Interview, Sword To Offer, and Programmer Interview Treasure Book!!!
Uploading to GitHub is too slow, so I’ll put it on cloud storage instead.
Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1fuofdPMdw95vfFrRASQBmA Password: af8s

This is the teaching transcript for the two months from July to September, taking someone from BMW Brilliance in Shenyang all the way to Didi in Beijing. Think about how much your skills, salary, future prospects, and network will improve.

Touch Up Your Dismal Resume

Every year, aside from helping people determine their career direction, the most head-ache-inducing part is reviewing resumes. When a pile of extremely low-information-density resumes gets thrown at me, I can’t even roast them directly. So before my blood pressure spikes, please, everyone, fix up your resumes.
For specific bad cases, please see badcase.docx. How many problems can you spot…

General feedback:

1. Remove your profile picture.
2. Delete the self-evaluation section.
3. Think back carefully on what you’ve done over the past few years, and list out your projects first.
4. Force yourself to quantify project results, strictly using the STAR method.
5. Don’t bother including school experiences unrelated to tech/the job target. Sitting at a desk doesn’t require you to be a 400-meter champion. If you have competitions, put high-level ones first.
6. Make sure to remove bootcamp/training experience—it’s better to list only project experience instead.
7. The entire resume must contain information relevant to your goal. The same principle applies if you aren’t interviewing for internet companies or becoming a programmer.
8. Export in PDF format.
9. Avoid looking overly template-heavy, and fix misaligned icons.
10. In short, write things that convince the interviewer you can create value for the company—even more value than candidates with master’s degrees from top-tier (985/211) universities.
11. Include your GitHub link. List your tech stack.

Honestly, the bar for tech companies nowadays has risen immensely. Saying “we don’t care about school background” is just PR fluff. Think about how to compete with top-tier university grads and master’s degree holders, and how to beat them. Don’t fail before you even take your first step out the door.

How to Practice Coding Problems

There is a five-step problem-solving method:
Step 1: Cover the answer and think for 5 minutes (10–15 minutes if you’re slower). If you have an approach, try writing it out. If not, look directly at the solution. Memorize it.
Step 2: Cover the answer and write out the code on paper without looking.
Step 3: Try to analyze time and space complexity, and think of multiple approaches.
Step 4: Repeat the previous day’s problems on the next day, and review week 1 during week 2.
Step 5: Quickly run through them all before the interview.
Never fall into the trap of spending hours stuck on a single problem or refusing to memorize code.

Hurry Up and Get Alumni Referrals for Your Resume

Internal referrals are a fast track—it’s a waste not to use them.

Second Semester of Junior Year

Why Internships Matter

Internships are an easier way to get into top tech companies without having to engage in a bloody battle against tons of top-tier university grads and master’s degree holders during campus recruiting.
If your performance during the internship is outstanding, you might even get a Special Offer.
Of course, it’s fine if you don’t perform well—just learn from the experience and move on to the next company.
You also get to evaluate the company; if it’s not a good fit, you have a chance to back out.
Plus 1 to work experience on your resume.
Build up workplace capital after graduation—you’ll get promoted faster and gain your boss’s trust more easily than those without internship experience.

Which Companies Should You Apply To?

Unlock your phone screen
Open your app list
You still don’t know where to apply?
Do proper background checks on companies to see if they are legitimate and have healthy values
Also, NEVER join an outsourcing firm. Once you’re in, your tech career is basically dead unless you have strong self-study habits in your free time.

Clean Up Your Social Feed

Your future boss—and even your future partner—will do background checks on you through your Moments.
Everyone has cringey or emo moments…
But I beg you to delete those negative and childish posts…

Don’t Be Scared

Submitting resumes costs nothing anyway, what the hell are you afraid of AAA!
Reaching out to upperclassmen won’t hurt a piece of your flesh, why the hell are you being such a coward AAA!
You haven’t even interviewed yet, why are you shrinking back AAA! If you fail an interview, just carry on to the next one!!!
Your first job after graduation will truly determine your starting line, future path, and the people and things you come into contact with.
So! Do whatever it takes to squeeze into big tech companies! Don’t be scared, don’t set limits on yourself, and spam those applications!

Key Timeline to Understand in Advance

Late June to mid-August: Prime time for internship interviews (If you can start in March, then March to mid-August)
Late August to late October: Campus recruitment bloodbath period
Early November to late December: Last chance for internship interviews
January to late April: Final period for internship work
Late April to late June: Graduation prep

Students aiming for tech companies should keep a close eye on the timeline above
Overall, if you get an offer during the late August to late October campus recruitment frenzy, congratulations! If not, don’t lose heart—late June to late December is a great window for internship interviews, and you can definitely take the path of converting an internship into a full-time campus recruitment offer.
However, pay attention during your internship to the company, team, technology stack, and return offer conversion rate. Don’t forget your ultimate goal is a full-time offer. If they can’t give you an offer, switch to the next company immediately.

If you feel your skills are lacking, don’t worry.
A 6-month window is more than enough time to finish reading the three books and work through a planned improvement strategy.
The essence of interviewing is test-taking. Don’t try to think about hands-on practice while cramming books. Rote memorize your way to getting an entry ticket first, then worry about practice. I stepped into many traps here during my campus recruitment interviews.
If you feel overwhelmed by how much you have to learn, break the material down into smaller pieces and conquer the skills that can rapidly boost your resume’s competitiveness first.

Break After Junior Year Second Semester

Work, Interpersonal Relationships, and Friendship

Work: Do your internship well. Summarize often, share frequently, and maximize your presence. Take on as many tasks and responsibilities as possible. It is precisely the right amount of pressure that drives personal growth.
Relationships: Your first job and city after graduation will define your social circle and horizons. Whether you want to take walks and chat with industry experts or live a mundane three-point routine after work is completely up to you.
Friendship: The friendships that survive graduation are friends for life. Don’t buy into sworn oaths at graduation; maintaining too many out-of-circle connections will severely drain your energy. So cherish the companions who fight alongside you.

Senior Year

Be Cautious Before Signing the Tripartite Agreement

Although there are ways to avoid breach-of-contract penalties, for the sake of your integrity and future juniors, be as careful as possible before signing the tripartite agreement.
Otherwise, your graduation season will be extremely stressful.

Graduate on Time & Enjoy the Last Leg of Student Life

Graduating on time is the prerequisite to ensure your offer isn’t rescinded. Besides, you wouldn’t want to spend another full year interning as a student, right?
The second semester of senior year is truly the last period in your life where you can live completely worry-free. Make sure you leave your dorm and school without regrets or hard feelings.

Workplace

Presence, Presence, Presence

Without a presence, your boss won’t think of you when opportunities arise. With zero influence, working silently like a workhorse is equivalent to workplace death.
How to boost your presence? Take the initiative! Share actively! Deliver beyond expectations! Include your learning and insights in daily and weekly reports!

Live Close to the Office, Even If It Costs More

When you’re packed like sardines in the morning subway, or complaining in company chat groups at midnight about not being able to catch a ride, you’ll thank yourself for spending that money.

Four Important Abilities

Words of wisdom from my senior:

• Curiosity
• Communication
• Fundamental technical skills
• Execution ability