Career Advice for BS in CS?

napkins · #1 03-20-2007, 12:15 AM

I'll be graduating this year from a decent public university with a BS in Computer Science and minor math. Honestly, I'm a little lost with trying to figure out where to go from here. For the most part I don't find myself extremely fascinated with any of the courses I've taken. This worries me because I see that my professors are extremely enthusiastic and I wonder if I can sustain a career that I'm not crazy about (the most common being software development etc).

I've had some experience as a developer and I didn't hate it, but I just don't find myself excited, or should I even be?

Lately I've been thinking about going for my masters, possibly in something like Financial Mathematics so that I can get some sort of job in finance using my previous experience in CS. Maybe quantitative research?

I'm wondering if anyone has had the same experience, advice or possible career paths that I could consider as a post-graduate.

_TKO_ · #2 03-20-2007, 01:19 PM

I'm in software engineering (2007 almost-grad), where we focus a ton on the development process, and very little on programming. I've had development jobs also. They suck. I'd suggest finding a challenging industry and using your skills there. Financial institutions tend to need script-writers.

If you like business, it's still pretty easy to find clients.

theben · #3 03-20-2007, 06:03 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Lately I've been thinking about going for my masters, possibly in something like Financial Mathematics so that I can get some sort of job in finance using my previous experience in CS. Maybe quantitative research?

[/ QUOTE ]

Although this would probably be a good route to a strong job, don't be surprised when you become the deptartment's code monkey for quite a while.

napkins · #4 03-20-2007, 08:34 PM

The actual coding I don't mind all that much. It's just that if I were to become a developer I'd have to learn ### more new languages that will become obsolete after XXX years. That I am not excited about at all. However, if I were to get a good grasp in one language like C++ (which I read is mainly used for financial systems) I think I could find a good balance between finance and programming, although I'm not sure if this is actually feasible.

SuperUberBob · #5 03-20-2007, 09:23 PM

Be a professional WoW player.

FatalError · #6 03-20-2007, 09:35 PM

in all honesty, for someone who recently graduated with one, go right back to school and get an MBA, you are going to hate your life in 20 years if you don't end up with google type stock options from your decades of writing code.

MBA in Information Systems is a very good track for someone with a BS in CS, you can be that guy at your company that does nothing but writes memos and goes out to business lunches while making 140k a year.

edtost · #7 03-20-2007, 09:42 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The actual coding I don't mind all that much. It's just that if I were to become a developer I'd have to learn ### more new languages that will become obsolete after XXX years. That I am not excited about at all. However, if I were to get a good grasp in one language like C++ (which I read is mainly used for financial systems) I think I could find a good balance between finance and programming, although I'm not sure if this is actually feasible.

[/ QUOTE ]

its definitely possible to have a quant job with a good balance, especially if you look toward hedge funds and prop desks rather than supporting a traditional sales desk or an IB group.