Getting foot in the door for a job/College Advice

[Gamingphreek]

I am going into my Senior year of high school. Afterwards i plan on going (hope i get accepted) to VTech and double majoring in computer and electrical engineering with a focus on Microprocessor Architecture.

I am looking to, after college, work for AMD, Intel, Nvidia, or ATI. AMD, Intel, Nvidia, ATI engineers, is there anything i can do to get my foot in the door. Any certifications i can pass and what not.

I am already planning on getting A+, and Network+ certified. Then i would like to get Microsoft Desktop Help (something like that) certified. Then ill get my MCP by taking a test on whatever OS is out at the time (might do it on XP because of familiarity). MCSE would probably come in or after college.

Would you guys recommend something else for me to do?

Additionally, in college can you not get like an internship with a company, and they pay for your college, and then when you get out of college you go and work for them? I would love to do that.

Any information you would need (ie: Resume) i can get.

Thankyou,
-Kevin Boyd

 

[franksta]

I think you stand a better chance if you go to school out west.

 

[cchen]

You really have no idea right now what you want to do. College changes you dramatically. I went into college thinking I wanted to do EE undergrad and become a patent lawyer. HAHA.... I remember those days.

Certs are useless if you want to be a design engineer. At this point, study hard and get good grades. And no, no company will pay for your college just from an internship, unless they have some kind of corporate scholarship program.

 

[Saint Nick]

Originally posted by: cchen
You really have no idea right now what you want to do. College changes you dramatically. I went into college thinking I wanted to do EE undergrad and become a patent lawyer. HAHA.... I remember those days.

Certs are useless if you want to be a design engineer. At this point, study hard and get good grades. And no, no company will pay for your college just from an internship, unless they have some kind of corporate scholarship program.

QFT, I'm doing Computer Engineering/Comptuer Science at UNO... Certs = t3h worthless.

Edit: Actually, they aren't really "worthless". They'll look great on a resume. It would show you are an avid learner and probably be a great asset to the company. However, pursue those certifications at a later date. And don't go overboard with 'em... just get some nice ones that will actulally be relevant to your major and desktop support, you'll be good.

 

[TommyVercetti]

Those certifications you mention are for IT type jobs, I don't think a company like AMD or Intel would find them very valueable for the major you are in.

Additionally, in college can you not get like an internship with a company, and they pay for your college, and then when you get out of college you go and work for them? I would love to do that.

When I was doing a co-op in Dallas, I noticed that a lot of U of Texas Dallas and U of Dallas students would have on going internships with one of the many tech and communication companies there (Nortel, Nokia, Sprint, EDI, etc). It was just like a part time job for them, around ~20 hours a week and they would go to school full time. I thought that was very interesting. Their internships were relevant to their major and they were getting paid $15-$22/hour. I kind of regeretted attending a school in a small town after learning about this. That is one way of going about it.

 

[yllus]

I'm not sure that the route to an engineering position at one of the companies you listed would come from working up through the ranks from desktop or network support. I think it's far more likely that one gets hired into a junior engineering position based on their coop and other "real-world" experience in the sector. I also highly doubt that a certification like an A+ or something similarly elementary would have any bearing on whether you get hired over another applicant.

Check out Intel's job listing page (linked below) and filter by "Recent College Graduate". You'll see they don't care a whit about certifications - it's about a degree, understanding and hopefully a little experience.

https://jobs.intel.com/jobs/jobs.iccw

 

[Gamingphreek]

No i have been working on computers all my life. Trust me my major isn't changing, unless i go for a more computer science type degree where i deal with more software.

IIRC, my dad got an internship with the government (Dept of State)and they did something similiar.

Will getting certified, aid in getting accepted into a college though? IE: Can i add that to my resume?

-Kevin

 

[vshah]

going into my junior year at CMU in ECE...

about 5-10 people a year have internships with one of the companies you mentioned. The internships are usually paid, but the companies don't pay for college or anything like that. These are usually either straight summer internships, or a 6-month paid co-op with the company. AMD is especially big on campus. I'll try talking to some of those guys and see what i can find out for you...

5-10 ppl a year get hired by amd/intel as well...maybe 0-2 a year to ati/nvidia...i'll try finding some alums as well...

-Vivan

 

[HardcoreRobot]

get a 4.0

certs pale in comparison to that

 

[cchen]

Ok, thats what I thought too. Then I took an actual EE class and hated. Being in HS, you have no idea what an actual EE class is like. I doubt certifications would help you get into college.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: yllus
I'm of the school of thought that says it's pointless to get those certifications that have become generic enough that nobody really pays them any heed. I'd put A+, Network+ and MCSE in this category.

So, get specific. If you're looking to become a software developer, a Zend PHP Certification or Sun Certified Developer certification could really help you. I'm not a hardware guy so I can't speak on that end, but there surely must be other specific certs you can get to help you out there.

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
No i have been working on computers all my life. Trust me my major isn't changing, unless i go for a more computer science type degree where i deal with more software.

IIRC, my dad got an internship with the government (Dept of State)and they did something similiar.

Will getting certified, aid in getting accepted into a college though? IE: Can i add that to my resume?

-Kevin

hehe that was my mindset as well going into ECE....

i'm still pursuing it as my major, but with much less zeal than before

btw I too want to work at nvidia/ati

 

[SaturnX]

If you're going into CompE or EE, all of those certs will be absolutely useless.

Focus your time and energy on getting internships as a junior engineer, or engineering assistant positions while at school. Basically in the end it's your experience that matters.

--Mark

 

[pravi333]

certs alone wont get you the job, but sure it is a great addition to your resume.
The companies only pay for the internship, not for your tuition. If you impress them enough during your internship, theres a great chance of landing into a full time job.
Dell does this very often, dont know about other companies.

 

[cchen]

Originally posted by: pravi333
certs alone wont get you the job, but sure it is a great addition to your resume.
The companies only pay for the internship, not for your tuition. If you impress them enough during your internship, theres a great chance of landing into a full time job.
Dell does this very often, dont know about other companies.

Every company that offers internships does this

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: jndietz

Originally posted by: cchen
You really have no idea right now what you want to do. College changes you dramatically. I went into college thinking I wanted to do EE undergrad and become a patent lawyer. HAHA.... I remember those days.

Certs are useless if you want to be a design engineer. At this point, study hard and get good grades. And no, no company will pay for your college just from an internship, unless they have some kind of corporate scholarship program.

Certs = t3h worthless.

If an employer thinks certs look good on a resume, they're probably as stupid as you were for taking them to begin with. You don't need the certs to prove you know what you're doing, and any IT type (hell, any engineer type) knows that...unless you run into some poor schmuck that went and did all his and thinks that's the only way to get a job.

 

[TuxDave]

Well, I think people have it wrapped up around here. But just in case you're still doubting, I'll repeat some. Certs are worthless. Internships are valuable for the experience and the potential to move into full time. They won't pay off your tuition though, at least I never heard of it.

Just make sure to get good grades and take whatever digital VLSI program that you guys have.

 

[UNCjigga]

I'm looking at some of the same companies you are, except I'm trying to get in on the marketing side (and if I do work for AMD I promise Tech Tour exclusives for Anandtech members!) Only advice I can give is start networking NOW--try to find someone who works at these companies as an engineer and find out what they did to get there, what steps to take, what are the hiring trends (development moving offshore?), what courses or skills would they acquire now if they were still in school, knowing what they know today.

BTW, I was also a Computer Science/Physics major going into school, thinking I would work towards a masters and work at Intel/Microsoft. I didn't last 2 semesters before switching to liberal arts, but I realized I wasn't a math/science nut like everyone else in the program so it wasn't really for me.

 

[oznerol]

Your motivation and enthusiasm are depressing. Dare I quote my "Engineers are not cool" post? I do.

As an engineer, those certifications listed are useless. They are nothing more than resume filler, especially in the field you chose to persue.

Just because you love computers and building/modding/whatever, does not mean you will make a good engineer. Just as having a passion for building giant wangs out of Legos wouldn't neccessarily make you a good architecht.

You can do a co-op, depending on your school, which sounds like what you're interested in. You would go to school for a few semesters, work for a semester or two, then go back to school to finish - generally getting hired by your co-op company once you graduate.

If anything, I'd recommend some kind of BS/MS program if you're really motivated and more importantly, smart. A Masters degree would prove far more useful than an A+ certification.

Also, PS - haha, for wanting to work for AMD, Intel, etc doing microprocessor architechture. You and everyone else.

For that I would basically recommend a PhD in Computer Engineering as well, and I also hope you have some kind of inside connection to those companies.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: ducci
Your motivation and enthusiasm are depressing. Dare I quote my "Engineers are not cool" post? I do.

As an engineer, those certifications listed are useless. They are nothing more than resume filler, especially in the field you chose to persue.

Just because you love computers and building/modding/whatever, does not mean you will make a good engineer. Just as having a passion for building giant wangs out of Legos wouldn't neccessarily make you a good architecht.

You can do a co-op, depending on your school, which sounds like what you're interested in. You would go to school for a few semesters, work for a semester or two, then go back to school to finish - generally getting hired by your co-op company once you graduate.

If anything, I'd recommend some kind of BS/MS program if you're really motivated and more importantly, smart. A Masters degree would prove far more useful than an A+ certification.

Also, PS - haha, for wanting to work for AMD, Intel, etc doing microprocessor architechture. You and everyone else.

For that I would basically recommend a PhD in Computer Engineering as well, and I also hope you have some kind of inside connection to those companies.

You don't need a PhD or an inside connection to get a job at those companies. I submitted my resume to Intel's website and got 2 site interviews (Folsom and Austin), and was offered a job as a chipset design engineer at the Folsom site. I turned the job down because I wanted to go to grad school, but the point is they noticed me and I went to a school they don't even visit. Oh yea, and after I turned down that job, I later received 2 more phone calls from other managers who wanted to interview me for other positions.

If you are still set on this once you have completed your first year of college, my advice would be to take any and all classes your school offers in digital design, comp. arch., and VLSI design.

However, the interviewers told me that the top chip architects at Intel did all have PhDs, so if you want to get to the higher levels of design you would probably need one eventually.

 

[Bryophyte]

GET YOUR MASTERS DEGREE. You won't go far at those companies with a BS. While you may need a PhD to get into the highest jobs there, you can get your employer to pay for it after you start working there. Pretty common to do it that way.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: Bryophyte
GET YOUR MASTERS DEGREE. You won't go far at those companies with a BS. While you may need a PhD to get into the highest jobs there, you can get your employer to pay for it after you start working there. Pretty common to do it that way.

Although it would take you an eternity to get a PhD while working. If it takes ~4 years to get it as a full time student, it must take forever to get it while trying to work. Unless the company will allow you to take a leave of absence or even offer to pay you your full time salary while you pursue the degree full time. I know one company (GE) said they allow that in some cases.

If you are a strong applicant the school may also offer to pay for your schooling and give you a living stipend. From what I understand it makes no sense to pay for an advanced engineering degree.

Do you work in the engineering industry? I'm starting an MSEE this fall and am uncertain of the degree's value. Everyone I talk to gives me a different answer.

 

[Ronin]

I have a MBA, and I'm not doing anything close to what my MBA is in (International Business major, Psychology and International Law minors). Just goes to show that it doesn't matter what you study, you never know where you'll end up.

 

[cchen]

MS, IMO, is useless, career-wise. That being said, I'm getting mine because I like the subject matter.

 

[777php]

In this day and age it is pretty much impossible to have a company pay for your schooling unless you've been working at the company for a while and you are going for your MBA or Masters in a related field. Also, they may require you to sign an agreement that you will work for them for X amount of years after you've finished the program.