DCS Ambassadors Training, Backpacks & Briefcases

Phew, I sure had to sit through a lot of training sessions/workshops today.  Well, I only had two but that’s two more than none…

The first one was the continuation of previous DCS Ambassadors training session for doing high school visits and presentations.  Our homework from the previous session was to prepare a short, 5-minute presentation on one of the following topics: why CS, why UofT, your own personal experience (in CS at UofT), or a CS activity.  Well, since I had nothing prepared (aside for the previous blog post, but I don’t think that’s presentation worthy), Victoria and I decided to wing it using the 1 hour of prep-time before the actual training session.

The second event that I went to was the Backpack to Briefcase event, organized by the department of Arts and Sciences.  The topic was “How to Find, Get, and Keep a Job”.  It sounded interesting enough so I decided to join.  I mean, who doesn’t want a job?

As for the DCS Ambassadors presentation, it actually didn’t turn out that bad.  One of the reasons why I didn’t crash and burn was because I had already talked a bit about my experiences in cs with some other people, so I already had a general idea of what I wanted to say. My presentation was a bit hairy at first; it’s been a while since I’ve had to do any kind of presentation so I was a bit rusty.  During the talk, I tried to spend a bit of time talking about my decision-making process while I was in high school, what led me to choose cs, how I picked UofT, that kind of stuff.  When I started to think about the stuff that I did in first and second year, I found that my experiences of that time were pretty boring.  Sure, I did a bit CS stuff, but I spent most of my time chilling with economics and actsci students doing very non-compsciy things.  We didn’t have the FLC program (at least, I didn’t know about it) and I really wasn’t all that interested in the departmental events. It wasn’t until I went through my PEY placement and came back for 3rd year that things became really interesting.

My only regret was that I didn’t spend more time prepping for the presentation.  With a bit more time and thought, I’m pretty sure that I could’ve whipped up a more sensible presentation outline with a slick powerpoint deck.  That’ll be something that Victoria and I will have to work out in the near future anyways, since I’ll be partnering with her for the high school visitations.

As for the Backpack to Briefcase event, it was an informative and insightful event, but it was a bit of a bore. Don’t get me wrong, the guest speakers offered some great advice about everything from resume writing to the importance of networking.  But over the past few months I’ve just been hearing so much about the same thing that its like I’m listening to a broken record.  With that said, one of the more interesting points that all three speakers seemed to touch on was the importance of networking.  Having a network of people that you can draw on for help can make a huge difference when you’re job hunting.  I’ve seen this happen in CS for PEY applicatants, and I’ve seen it through my brother in his work at Sears.  Just remember though, you need to build up your networks before you need it, not during or after when it’s already too late.