my Future, could some one give me some suggestion

[SomeABC]

Hello, I am graduating soon from UBC cpsc undergrad around the end of this year. My GPA is a shame, approxiatemly 65%. I am worried about my future, I don't know where I could end up with this GPA. Could someone tell me some career path. I am very interested in the area of business as well.

Thank you

[jernst]

Do you have a portfolio of good work projects or something you could show off to de-emphasize your grades? that may be of use when applying for jobs. If you don't you might want to consider contributing to open source projects or doing some personal projects on your own to show that you can make some good useful things that people are interested in.

Another thing you could consider is taking a college diploma since this may give you some more applied skills, and help you make connections to industry. This would also allow you another opportunity to earn higher grades and make connections to industry (and even take some business courses).

In terms of applying to places now, be sure to emphasize the courses which you did well in and any practical experience you have. Hopefully you also have some volunteer work related hobbies and interests that can make you interesting and stand out.

A good place to go would be to your career centre at your school, they will probably be the most help to you.

[SomeABC]

Hey, Jason, thank you so much for the quick reply.
I am very interested in participating in volunteering with open source projects. Would you please tell me some place to look for a project that I can participate.
For getting some diploma, what kind of diploma would be a good choice, business oriented or more technical oriented? Or would it be better if I just focus on getting some certificates from Sun Java, Oracle, Cisco?
Thank you

[Tony]

SomeABC @ Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:45 pm wrote:

Would you please tell me some place to look for a project that I can participate.

http://github.com/ is an awesome place to start.

[jernst]

One of the first places that comes to mind for me is sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/
I'm sure many of the other people on these forums can offer a list of other possibilities as well.

For the diploma, I suppose it would depend on your tastes and what type of career you plan to head towards in the future. That's probably a better question to ask a career person. However if you are wanting to stick more to doing technical work like programming, web development etc I would probably suggest sticking to technical programs. If you are more interested in project management or analyst jobs then maybe business-oriented might be more beneficial. At the same time keep in mind it will be difficult to get into an analyst or management position without first doing some technical work and proving of your skills.

I have met with a few people who have graduated school three or four years ahead of me and some of them swear by the certifications, however many of them only pursued this after they were employed because often times the employer will pay for you to take these. These seem to be a good idea if you are trying to work your up the ladder at a company, but also improve your skills and qualifications for other companies. Again this may be a question for your career center (or perhaps other ppl in the forums here since I have only a couple of years of working experience myself)

[btiffin]

OpenCOBOL could use some hands.
http://opencobol.org
We need doc writers, IDE builders, (if you have what it takes) compiler writer apprentices, application builders, GUI development ideas; a plethora of wants and needs.

Falcon could use some hands.
http://falconpl.org; Giancarlo will gladly accept entries for consideration on the Feathers Modules front.

Oh so many opportunities in the area of development systems.

If programming language development isn't up your alley, then the world could really use help in the area of translations and Accessability. Easing computer usage for differently abled people is not only good for the soul, but good for humanity. (Might only make you famous in a limited circle, but efforts here will be greatly appreciated by those small circles).

By and Large, Open Source Projects are "self initiative" opportunities. Start small; visit forums, cheerlead a bit, write a small snippet or doc or two and then you may be surprised at how the other members of a community accept and appreciate the efforts. Don't expect to be invited to the core of the Linux Kernel team your first week out, manage those expectations properly and the world of FOSS is wide open at this point. It turns out, that in FOSS, talk is cheap, and because of this, a lot of key players are initially sceptical of new players, but are willing to wait and watch to see how the talk becomes the walk.

Cheers