Masters in Computer Science Engineering
Software Engineer, Google
MS in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Manufacturing Engineer, GSK Pharmaceuticals
MS in Computer Science
Software Engineer, Salesforce
Published on May 20th, 2021
Last updated on August 18th, 2023
Hello Trojans,
I started at USC in the Spring 2015 batch. And like many others I was also a little hesitant of joining in the Spring batch, but now that I’ve graduated and when I look back, I think starting in Spring has its own advantages and if I had to repeat this all over again I’d choose the Spring batch over Fall any day.
I think the biggest downside of starting in Spring is that you can’t do an internship in the first summer of your Masters. But that also means that it gives you time to prepare for upcoming internship interviews. In my case, I did a part time job and built up my resume to be ready by the end of the summer. And as soon as summer ended, I applied to all the tech companies I wanted to do an internship in. Most of the big tech companies start recruiting for their summer internship program, in the fall before. So make sure you’re ready to apply as soon as possible!
I cleared my Google interviews in October 2015 and I snagged a spot in their internship program for Summer 2016. I interned with the Google Play team at MTV. In the meantime I also started to apply for Co-op internships for my last semester (Fall 2016). It was a little early to apply for that program, considering most of the companies are just looking for their upcoming summer internship program. But I managed to get a co-op at Yahoo with the Yahoo Finance team in New York. I managed to complete most of my USC coursework in the first 3 semesters, and I just had 1 credit remaining in the last semester, which was covered by my co-op.
After completing my summer internship at Google, I applied to a bunch of tech companies for full time positions and I got an offer from a few of them, while I was interning at Yahoo. But I got an offer from Google pretty early in Fall 2016 and I accepted that offer. I’m still with Google as of now and I work with the Google Photos team.
I think the biggest advantage of the Spring batch is that it gives you time to prepare for technical interviews at big tech companies, whereas if you join the Fall batch you’d have to start applying as soon as you land in the US which might not give you enough time to prep your resume/coding skills.
All in all, each batch has its own sets of pros and cons but it's up to you to take advantage of its pros and don’t worry too much about the cons!
I wish you all the best and good luck for your future!
Cheers,
Antriksh
Having to be associated with all of these organizations not only helped me in my personal and professional growth but also gave me a platform to express and implement my ideas. Also, on the professional front, at my time at USC I got to intern for Raytheon Technologies as a Mechanical Engineer and with Tesla as a Mechanical Design Engineer. Needless to say, both of these experiences were a perfect platform and helped me in the growth of my career.
USC provided ample opportunities to learn, evolve and find my position in the technology world. When I joined USC Viterbi as a Spring 2018 Computer Science Masters student, I got to take great courses that helped build a solid foundation for being a well-rounded software engineer.
I was blessed with a couple of on-campus technical jobs that helped in boosting my resume further. USCs courses and my experience at ICT as a Software Engineer led to a lot of opportunities and I ended up getting offers from Salesforce, Amazon and Schlumberger.
I found starting in Spring advantageous is some respects. I was exposed to my seniors methodically searching for internships while I was in my first semester and I was aware of all the information before hand to prepare for my job hunt. And I had complete three semesters before I had to do an internship which gave me ample amount of time to get done with more difficult courses earlier on and dedicate more time in my last two semesters in preparing for interviews for internships and full-time jobs.
