✅Success Checklist

This guide provides a broad-ranging checklist to work towards a successful career as a software engineer.

Whether you are a Freshman or a Senior, there is always plenty of things you can do right now to improve your chances of success in the technology industry.

Note that no one is an expert at everything and no one will be able to complete 100% of the items below. It’s okay and normal that you won’t know everything, and that you won’t complete this entire checklist.

Take things one step at a time. Try to focus your learning and time around particular goals. There’s an enormous amount to learn and do, and it’s really easy to get overwhelmed. Think of this as a guide towards getting your first/next technical internship and then first full-time role after graduation.

Top-level goals:

• Create an effective resume and LinkedIn to prepare for your job search

• Acquire technical internship interview readiness for phone screens and on-site interviews

• Acquire confidence developing in one industry tech stack beyond what’s taught in classes

• Work in at least one software internship position by summer of Junior year

• Strengthen your professional network with more engineers and motivated peers

Key action items:

• Develop an understanding of what being a software engineer involves

• Complete a first course (SE101 or SE102) of our software fundamentals course series

• Complete one or more of our special topics courses (iOS, Android, Cybersecurity, etc)

• Complete a second course (SE102 or SE103) of our software fundamentals course series

• Participate in our virtual career fairs which connects students directly to companies

• Apply for as as many technical positions as you possibly can (Sophomore/Junior)

Or complete additional action items:

• Further studying for technical interviewing, either by yourself or with peers leveraging online resources

• Find at least one mentor you can check-in with periodically that can provide you support

• Personally mentor at least one student earlier in their career than you to strengthen your own understanding

• Help lead a class as a TechFellow on at least one course they completed or provide technical support to other students

• Work in a 2nd technical internship before graduation

• Contribute to your first open-source project

• Launch a side project (web app or mobile) that some number of people other than yourself actually use

• Attend local hackathons or coding events to collaborate on code and meet new students/engineers