does the school matter more than the grades?

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SaggyCheeks

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I'm currently attending a junior college and am going to transfer to a 4 year in a few semesters for a bachelors in computer science. I live in California, and would like to know if having a good GPA (~3.9) would offset coming from a CSU instead of a UC. From what I have heard, I would prefer a CSU over a UC. However, if it will cost me a potential job, I would rather just bite the bullet and attend a UC.

I guess my real question is: what are employers looking for in terms of a resume? Does it look better on a resume to come from a UC rather than a CSU even if I have a good GPA?
 
Really depends on the field.

If you are going into programming I would think skill would be more important.

Some places ask for grades. Most just want to see that you have a degree.
 
As long as we're talking the same class of institution (real, brick and mortar four-year instutitons) I would say that in GENERAL GPA counts more than school, at least as first. For your first job (after that, experience becomes more important than school), many companies have systems that simply filter out all resumes with GPAs under 3.x - they won't even look at the Resume if it doesn't meet that whether it's from Iowa State or Carnegie Mellon.
 
In the two jobs I've held since I graduated. Neither have asked me for a college transcript. I'm not going to go and say that's the norm but I've felt like the interviews and being able to answer the technical questions ( in both cases I was interviewed by engineers I'd be working for instead of HR) were what got me the job.
 
Grade and interview matters more unless its a "really" bad place you studied at, in which case it can only not help.
If you have an interview that accepts you because of where you studied only, you might want to re-consider working there yourself as you can imagine that the rest of the employee selection hasnt been to hot as well.
 
What matters more than anything else, especially fresh out of college, is experience. Find an internship. Contribute to an open-source project. Find a professor and see if he needs any research assistance. Work on a project of your own. Pick up a new programming language. Companies generally look at your GPA in absence of anything else, and if you've got experience under your belt, then they're less likely to disregard you based on the school you come from, as long as you have a degree.
 
ikari303 said:
What matters more than anything else, especially fresh out of college, is experience
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QFT.

When looking for a job, graduating with honors from MIT is only going to move you to the top of the "Fresh college grad with no experience pile". Outside of attending one of the top-10 engineering schools, the name on your degree is only really going to matter if the guy reading resumes went to the same school.

"What do you call a guy that graduated med school last in his class?"
"Doctor."
 
I've never hired developers but I have hired plenty of admins and I can say that what I look for (depending on the specific job) is generally a degree and/or required experience. That should get you in the door for an interview. Beyond that, I don't care if you have a 4.0 from MIT, if you don't have the knowledge and skill set required for what I'm looking for then you're just wasting my time. In the IT industry, generally a degree gets you past HR, it's your experience that really will get you the jobs you want.
 
Interviewers and hiring managers may use grades as a filter to help eliminate the pool of applicants, and go from there. Though from my discussions and time spent sitting in on some hiring processes and discussions, this is more for entry level positions or those looking for just a few (1-3) years of industry experience.

Advanced employment positions will focus a lot more on past work experience, time spent at each job (to spot patterns of gypsy employment), high level details of projects and tasks performed at past jobs, etc.

These are some early things I've looked at before considering a face-to-face interview, which I focus more on seeing what the limits the person has to a hypothetical situation and how their thought processes are.


Thinking back to my college years, my GPA for just my degree-related classes was a little better than my cumulative. So in my resume, I emphasized the calculated GPA for just those classes, with my cumulative GPA stated afterward. I also remember interviewers wanting GPA's calculated on a 4-point scale instead of a 5-point scale (not sure how true this is today, however).
 
ikari303 said:
What matters more than anything else, especially fresh out of college, is experience. Find an internship. Contribute to an open-source project. Find a professor and see if he needs any research assistance. Work on a project of your own. Pick up a new programming language. Companies generally look at your GPA in absence of anything else, and if you've got experience under your belt, then they're less likely to disregard you based on the school you come from, as long as you have a degree.
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^ this....

This is the best thing you can do. Also have something to show. I think I got my first job out of college because I included my website which showed, even if just examples or play sites, that I like doing this stuff and that I could do it. Obviously, make sure the content is appropriate but I really really think this helped out a lot.

I think I had like 4 different domains at one point each some website which I never really finished and I had one site for some reenacting group.
 
I don't hire programmers (as I work in finance), but the gist of what I look for would probably apply. When I look to hire for roles with limited experience, I look at:

Does your resume have mispellings, crappy gpa/no gpa listed, does it annoy me/bore me with worthless data or distracting formats--trash pile

Do you have some experience (internship, part time job, etc.) and did you do anything useful with it (we look for overachievers).--These go to the top of the pile.

Everyone else is tossed into the maybe pile, and all of this happens in about 15-20 seconds per resume. With regards to colleges, a good one weighs above another all things being equal, but you'll still get an interview regardless. Reality is that there are very few jobs out there where you absolutely have to come from the right college to be considered. Different story if you are talking about an online degree, but for your situation I'd say you're fine.
 
If i worked on my own project, and wanted to add it to a resume, what would be the best way to do it? Should I put it on a cd and submit it with the resume or upload it to a website and put the address on the resume? Is there a better way?
 
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