RadGrad is an entry way into a world of computer science I had no idea was within my reach. There were many new interests and career interests to be explored. I had no idea the number of events that go on throughout the year. This is the biggest advantage of RadGrad, the exposure. I think so much happens in the computer world that I don’t know about and radGrad will give me exposure to these opportunities, if not just make me aware of them. While I am not quite confident in my skills yet, radGrad has given me the impression that it’s at least worth my time to check some of these events out. It was helpful in linking classes to my personal interests, so that when it comes time for registration, I have a couple of course numbers in the back of my head to pay a little more attention to. As far as career goals go, there is a lot to get excited about. I saw a couple interesting opportunities and was able to add them to my profile.
It was a bummer to not see anything specifically related to finance. Being so interested in the stock market, I think that would be a direction I’d want to pursue; though I can see how it can be closely related to machine learning and similar skills would be applied. In the future, perhaps radgrad could incorporate other majors so that students can collaborate all over campus and be involved with an even wider network of people. I think this radGrad program would have been a lot more helpful for me when I was first starting out, rather than only learning about it now. I would have liked the direction (as far as having an idea of an end goal) from the get go. I also have a little bit of a problem with the ICE score. While it would probably be a good thing for me, as far as leaarning new skills and actually meeting people in the computer community, I don’t feel like I have the time to achieve everything that was inserted into my plan. As someone who is trying to speed up graduation as fast as possible, the amount of activities needed to achieve a perfect score seems a little daunting.
Overall, radGrad has been good for my exposure in the Computer Science world. I don’t think it will alter my college experience in a major way, but it has provided me with a few things to keep in the back of my mind. While I don’t feel necessarily inclined to follow through and complete every little thing from my radGrad page, I am left with some curiosity that will get me to some new events, which is something that would not have happened without this platform.