Assignment 2:1 – Formal Report Proposal

To: Dr. Erika Paterson 

From: Yifan Wang, ENGL 301 

Date: Oct 11, 2021 

Subject: Prepare UBC CS students for job market better by extending the current functionalities of CSSS 

Introduction 

The Computer Science (referred as CS hereafter) department of the University of British Columbia has ranked well among other Computer Science faculties around the world. However, for students, most of the courses they take focus on CS fundamentals. While having a solid foundation is important, a lot of students lack preparation for finding Co-op or full-time jobs. 

Currently, the major student organization in the CS department is Computer Science Student Society (referred as CSSS hereafter). The services it provides include hosting technical career fair, place for tutors to advertise themselves, and a student lounge, etc.  

Statement of Problem 

The lack of preparation is mainly reflected in three aspects.

First, the courses students take at school does not adequately prepare them for behavioural and technical interviews. Although the CS Co-op office does provide mock behavioural interview to students, it is usually not in enough depth, and most of the time they are unable to provide mock technical interviews to students. As a result, students do not have chance to practice before going to the real interviews and always performs poorly in their first few interviews. However, these “first few interviews” might be all the interviews they could get in their job seeking term.

Second, school does not teach students most of the tools used at work. The best way to make a resume stand out is to have personal projects on it. However, students might get overwhelmed by the wide-array of technologies to choose from.

Third, most students do not know what companies do, and sometimes may not know what to expect in their daily work. Hence, knowledge sharing is important between people in the industry and students. 

Proposed Solution 

As a research university, UBC focuses on theoretical computer science, teaching computer science fundamentals. It would too much of a burden for UBC CS to fully undertake the responsibility of preparing students for job market, so this has to be done by student organizations, and UBC CSSS seems to be a good fit because it is well-known among students, and because it is funded by the CS department.

The proposed solution is extending the current functionalities of CSSS. Including providing regularly updated guides on how to prepare for job seeking on the website, in-person mock interview and personal project workshops, and Q&A session with UBC CS alumni working in different industries.  

Scope 

I plan to write a feasibility report to Leonard Wang, the president of CSSS. To evaluate the feasibility of providing more activities, there are few questions to be answered by UBC CS students: 

• How many students feel that there is a disconnection between CS education and actual job.
• How badly does the disconnection affect their first job seeking.
• What kind of activities should the club provide to bridge the gap. 
• In what format should some of the activities be.

Methods 

One of the primary sources would be interviews with current CS students to better understand what exactly the differences are between school and work. Also, I will use surveys to gauge the interest in joining activities and activities people expect to participate in. Meanwhile, I will also consult online articles as my secondary sources to learn more about other universities’ practices.

Qualifications 

I am doing my second degree in Computer Science at UBC. Recently, I have completed two Co-ops, and is looking for a full-time job. I have experienced such disconnection between education and actual work and noticed that there are also people struggling in preparing for job seeking.  

Conclusion 

While UBC’s CS department offer students high quality education in Computer Science fundamentals, a solid foundation does not always translate to a good job offer. The disconnection between education and real job market hinders a lot of students from getting their first job, and this is better to be addressed by a student organization. We could do this by extending the functionalities of the existing CSSS.