Takeaway from their stories

  • Never let failures define you
  • Keep pushing on
  • Computer science is a versatile degree
    • Is used in a lot of stem fields

Pathways

There are many career paths offered at CSUSM, and even if you ended up unhappy with one major, it can branch out to another

Clubs

Clubs offer a lot of opportunity for students

Internships

  • Can get internship by networking and doing events that were offered
  • Internship opportunities at other universities
  • Avoid when they’re unpaid internships
  • Apply even if you think you’re under qualified; the worst they can say is no
  • Ask for help writing your essay

Programs:

  • Many programs in four week periods that even offer pay

Paying for college

  • Grant vs. Scholarship
    • Grant is publicly funded (ex. via government), and scholarship is privately funded
    • How much parents earn plays into whether you get a grant or not
  • Subsidized loan vs. unsubsidized loan
    • Subsidized loan is a loan that is partially funded by the government, to prevent you from further going into debt
    • Unsubsidized loan you start accruing interest on the loan as soon as you finished the semester
    • Try to avoid getting loans !

Life After CSUSM

  • Most people end up working for private industries, rather than public industries (teachers)
  • Should be getting paid for the masters and PhD degrees

After lecture activity

Here we are setting up the equipment with the provided batteries; you connect the red wire and the blue wire. After they are properly connected, the device vibrates, but there is no functionality Because the device vibrates, we attached an end of a toothbrush to the end of a device. The device now serves a purpose.

Takeaway: Many things don’t have a functionality until there is a specific desire for it. The vibrating battery device did not serve a purpose until we connected a tooth brush to the end of it.

Reflection:

Overall, I learned about classes in college, and the limitless opportunities that colleges, in this case CSUSM provides. It was nice to hear the advice that college grads gave because they have already made the mistakes such as debt loaning for us, which would save us a lot of headache if we had to go through the troubles ourselves. Additionally, their presentation gave me insight to how class/course selection works at college, so I am now more prepared than I was prior to their presentation. Lastly, I liked the hands-on activities that the college grads provided because even though it was easy to get it to work, the idea of giving a seemingly insignificant device a purpose opened my mind about how other parts of my life may be applicable to this.