Career Changes
By Lillian Jiang
“What do you want to do in the future?” is such a simple yet complicated question. Although it can be very daunting to think far into the future, college is the perfect place to explore different career paths. To get a better understanding of how others found their answer, I interviewed two recent graduates from AWE during their final semester about how their goals have changed throughout college.
Anni Chai
Anni Chai graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in data science in Spring 2022 and had a slight non-linear career path. Starting from thinking that computer science wasn’t for her after taking CS61A to dabbling in data science, Anni is now an incoming software engineer at Stripe! Read more about how her experiences and internships lead her to confidently choose her full-time role.
What were your career goals entering Cal?
I entered Berkeley as an intended math major because I liked it in high school and wanted to pursue STEM, but wasn’t sure about which specific area in STEM. I thought that math would be a good entry path into STEM since it’s the foundation of many STEM courses and degrees.
How did your career goals change in freshman year?
I took CS61A because a lot of my friends who were intended CS majors convinced me to. I struggled with the course so I thought that the computer science, engineering path was impossible for me.
At the end of my freshman year, I heard about summer opportunities and internships that my friends had lined up, and immediately felt like I was falling behind.
I reached out to people who were older than me, and they all comforted me and told me I didn’t need to be so stressed, any experience could count as long as I was learning new things. So I looked through Reddit about what to do over the summer and decided to cold-email professors for research since all the research applications were closed at the time. I sent about 200 emails and only received a few friendly responses encouraging me to apply after I’ve taken a few more classes. But at the end of this process I got an opportunity under the Berkeley Law School to redraw the California School Districts. I enjoyed the work so I switched majors from intended math to data science. And one on-campus opportunity led to another. I ended up spending my sophomore year working as a data peer consultant for the Data Science Department, did analytics work for Research IT at Berkeley, and another transportation related research project.
Tell me more about some of your internships.
I got my first summer internship at a biotech company doing data science. Although the work was really interesting, I learned that to go far in this field, I’d probably need another degree which led me to decide data science in biotech is not for me. After the summer internship ended, I got an opportunity to intern full time during fall for the same biotech company, working on AR glasses this time. I ended up taking some time off school, working on the AR glasses project full-time for a semester and part-time for another.
The AR internship got me super interested in software development, but I was still a little hesitant dropping the data science career path that I had just started. After some internal debate, I picked up coding on my own, did my own projects on the side, and took the CS classes that I could get into, all for a leap of faith in switching to software engineering.
That led to my first SWE internship in my junior summer. I loved the work so I took another semester off to intern in SWE again but for a different company.
What are some things that you learned from your internships?
Experimenting with internships led me to realize that I want to be a software engineer. It also helped me decide on what type of company I wanted to work with and what type of work I want to do. It made my decision easy to accept my full-time job offer!
What advice would you give your younger self about your career?
- One thing that I did well was following my interests. I’d tell my younger self to keep on doing well with that and not second guess following your interests. Let that lead the way to your career.
- College is only 4 years and if you look back and see that you’ve only done things that were for resume padding then it’s not worth it.
- I would also tell my younger self not to be worried that a recruiter won’t understand the switches and transitions in my resume. At the end of the day, a recruiter may think that your resume is diverse and/or be willing to help you transition. You can also explain your resume to a recruiter and tell them you’re trying to switch.
Katherine Shu
Katherine Shu graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in computer science in Spring 2022 and started out with a gut feeling that she wanted to do computer science. Read more about how she explored different fields in computer science by taking classes at Berkeley and doing internships!
What were your career goals entering Cal?
I knew I wanted to do computer science even though I came in with no experience. There was kind of a gut feeling that I wanted to do computer science so I just went with it. Luckily I do really enjoy computer science and didn’t need to make any switch in college.
How did you know you have a gut feeling? What did that feel like?
Honestly, sometimes I’m not that sure. I did a lot of STEM stuff in high school like math and physics. Maybe I found CS a bit more applicable compared to becoming a math teacher. I guess I specifically did EECS because I wanted to be an engineer. I don’t think I ever thought of it as a super serious decision because I knew a lot of people who changed careers during or after college.
Are there any classes that have broadened your interest in CS? Are there any classes that haven’t?
I like high level content so I really liked CS 170 and CS 188. CS 188 was a big deal for me because it made me realize what AI was and made me go that direction because I really enjoyed the course. I took the first midterm and had fun taking the midterm. That was the point when I realized I really liked the content and that I want to do it in the future.
On the flip side I don’t like low-level stuff so CS 61C and CS 162 weren’t great.
How have internships shaped your career journey?
I took a gap year during COVID to intern and do research. The goal was to try out different companies and see what type of role and culture I was looking for. I had the mindset that everything was software engineering but I got to try out front-end vs back-end, different company sizes, and different cities.
Do you think you’re pretty set in your career path or do you anticipate making career changes?
My general plan is to eventually pivot to Product Management. I wanted to start more technical because I just learned all this technical knowledge and I want to use it more. I like working with products because it creates visible and concrete results. I specifically like consumer products a lot. I don’t know when or exactly how I would make that switch but it’s on my mind.
Do you have any advice for people who are unsure about their career? What would you have told your younger self?
Give everything a try. While you’re at Berkeley try as many things as possible because you never know. It’s better to try now than later when there’s so much less at stake in college. There’s also a lot of opportunities here at Berkeley that you can’t get post-grad like the Jacobs design classes or research. I know it can be overwhelming because there’s so many things you could try, but you can start by choosing the ones you’re most interested in. Basically, don’t completely say no to something until you’ve tried it.
Do you have any advice for people who want to explore different areas in Computer Science?
Starting from the lower divisions you can see what classes you like more and explore those areas with upper-division classes. I really liked CS 61B and CS 70 so that made me want to do more CS 170 and AI. I had friends who really liked CS61C so they went down the 160s route.
