CECS Newsletter 2 for AY 2009/10

September 18 2009

by Dr. Alvaro Monge

The Fall 2009 Job Fair will take place at the University Student Union on October 8 2009 between noon at 4pm. There is a list of employers that will be present, including companies which have historically hired CECS students: Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon.

This fair brings together representatives from many graduate and profession schools to provide information and answer questions about their program, in particular admissions procedures and how to finance your graduate education. The event is free.

• Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009
• Time: 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
• Location: Friendship Walk (in front of the bookstore)

As an example, the Department of Bioengineering at UC Riverside will have a representative there to discuss the BIG (Bioengineering Interdepartmental Graduate) Program .

Those of you who will be taking the WPE this coming September 26 may want to attend the WPE workshops to prepare you for the exam.

As of this Fall 2009 and starting this past Tuesday September 15th, undergraduate students have specific limits to course withdrawals and repetition of courses. A PDF page provided by Academic Advising describes the new policy. Here is a brief summary, students should download the provided description for more details.

• Undergraduate students may withdraw from a maximum of 18 units over the course of their entire CSULB undergraduate career.
• Students may repeat 28 units over their entire CSULB undergraduate career of which a maximum of 16 units can be for Grade Forgiveness
  • Students may repeat a class at CSULB in which a grade of D, F, WU or NC was received.
  • Students may repeat an individual course only once for grade forgiveness.

Students are encouraged to seek the help of an adviser when making a decision about withdrawing from a class or repeating a class.

As some of you may have already discovered, MyCSULB already provides access to the Spring 2010 schedule of classes. This is to alert everyone else and also to remind everyone that there are still many changes pending on the schedule. The schedule will most likely be ready by late October.

Tutoring for lower-division CECS classes continues to take place on Fridays from 10:00am to 4:00pm in ECS-403. Tutoring is available for: CECS-110, CECS-174, CECS-201, CECS-262, CECS-274, CECS-277, and CECS-282.

CECS Labs ECS-403 and ECS-416 will be open from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Saturdays.

The University posts several key dates and deadlines for Fall 2009. Some deadlines coming up:

• Sep 21, 2009: Deadline to file for CR/NC or Audit grade options
• Sep 28, 2009: Final deadline to add courses (or change grade option) with $10 missed deadline fee

• For Writing Software, a Buddy System: A NY Times article describing how pair programming is used at a Web development company. Quote: "When programmers interview for a job here, we ask that they spend a week with us, and we pair them with as many people as possible. Besides checking their skill level, we want to see if we could all work side by side with them for weeks at a time and if they're a fit with the company. It gives them a chance to check us out, too."
• Master the Mainframe Contest 2009: Did you know that 25 of the top 25 banks worldwide run on System z, IBM's mainframe computing system? 71% of Fortune 500 companies are also System z clients. Registration for the 2009 IBM Master the Mainframe Contest is now open for students across the U.S. and Canada (excluding Quebec). This year, the IBM Academic Initiative System z team is giving away over $27,000 in prizes, including T-shirts, pre-paid debit cards, Lenovo netbook computers, Samsung LCD HDTVs and trips to the mainframe lab in Poughkeepsie, NY. No mainframe or large systems experience is necessary. Students who complete Part 2 of the contest will also be invited to put their resumes into the Student Opportunity System, a recruiting tool for enterprise systems employers. IBM will be directing interested recruiters to link up with students through that system.
• In Silicon Valley, the Jobs Picture Has Changed: A NY Times article summarizing employment history from 2001 to 2008 in Silicon Valley, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• IEEE Honors External Pacemaker and ARPANET: ARPANET…"was the world's first operational packet-switching network, and the predecessor to today's Internet. And it all started with just two letters - "lo" - sent from a computer at UCLA to one at the Stanford Research Institute on 29 October 1969."

Symantec has an intern software engineer position with responsibilities including implementation and maintenance features for Symantec Antivirus products or related tools. Here are the major responsibilities for this internship position:

• Develop high-quality software solutions for mass-market software with millions of customers and tens of millions of nodes.
• Program client and server side C++, as well as user interface C++.
• Some positions require PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, 4NT, Bash, etc.
• Identify, evaluate, learn and apply new technology skills rapidly.
• Communicate within technical teams and with managers.
• Provide estimates at a task level.
• Conduct research into feature feasibility and efficacy.
• Some positions dissect and execute with live malicious software.
• Design and implement security centered solutions.

Position Requirements and Education

• Must have experience programming in C++, preferably for Windows applications.
• Working knowledge of exception handling desirable.
• Must understand fundamental algorithms and how to implement them.
• Must work well in a team environment; take team successes and failures as own.
• Must communicate effectively through technical documentation, email and face-to-face.
• Must adapt to rapidly changing environments and communicate effectively.
• Must be willing to locate in Southern California.
• Bachelors degree in Engineering, Computer Science or equivalent work experience required.
• Must be able to both take and give constructive criticism of design and coding decisions.

Critical Success Factors

• Adaptability
• Dependability
• Communication
• Quality
• Productivity/Velocity

Symantec's Internship Program website has more information about interns at Symantec.

For more information and to apply contact Robert Conrad or also contact Symantec's University Relations team.

The department received information about the National Internship Program from Project Vote Smart. You can learn more about this project on their website. To learn more about and apply to the internship, please visit the National Internship Program website. One of the internship positions is for an Information Technology Assistant which lists responsibilities of: technical support, website development in PHP, HTML, CSS and XML, application development in Java and JSP, network and system administration.

Academia.edu is a social network for academics. Complete details about the software engineering position is available online. The jobs page gives an overview of the company.

Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates and professionals - of all majors, backgrounds, and career interests - who commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity. This fall, 7,300 corps members will be teaching in 35 regions across the country while 17,000 Teach For America alumni continue working from inside and outside the field of education for the fundamental changes necessary to ensure educational excellence and equity.

You can join the movement and apply to the 2010 Teach For America corps. The NEXT Application Deadline: Friday, September 18th, 2009. You can read descriptions about who they are looking for and also the variety of benefits provided.

You can't modify a constant, float upstream, win an argument with the IRS, or satisfy this compiler

An error messaged from a C compiler as reported by A J Cunninghan as found in C Compiler Errors (For Real).