The importance of communities to graduates

Hi Guys,

One of our organisers, Fatos Ismajli, an undergraduate of Kings College London, attended a presentation at his former uni about the importance of societies to graduates. Guest speakers from three organisations, the IEEE, the BCS (Chartered Institute for IT) and the IET (The Institution For Engineering & Technology) all made presentations about what they offered to graduates and how they could help with career progression.

Being an active member of a community is an excellent way to network with fellow developers, share information and potentially even acquire new jobs. Obviously the GDC should still be your number one J but these other societies could also be valuable resources.

Here is a brief summary on each, but for more detailed information you should definitely check them out:

The IEEE is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. They run competitions, award scholarships, allow students access to an extensive library and have several special interest groups, including a computing society. They also have a general news site (http://spectrum.ieee.org/) and their IEEEXtreme competition is a world-renowned programming contest: (http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/students/competitions/xtreme/index.html).

More information here: http://www.ieee.org

The IET was Founded 140 years ago and is the world’s leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community. They also run competitions, awards and scholarships.

More information here: http://www.theiet.org/

Finally, the BCS. They champion the global IT profession and the interests of individuals engaged in that profession for the benefit of all.  The Institute fosters links between experts from industry, academia and business to promote new thinking, education and knowledge sharing. Again they run competitions and scholarships.

More information here: http://www.bcs.org/

One more noteworthy society that weren’t present at the event is the ACM (Association of Computer Machinery), who are one of the largest groups dedicated to computer science. They produce a large catalogue of specialist publications and also run several SIGs like the IEEE.

More info here: www.acm.org

I hope this brief guide to graduate friendly communities helps, I’m sure there are many more out there, but these are some of the most well known.

If you have any questions about any of the above or require careers advice don’t hesitate to give me a shout at ab@recworks.co.uk.

Thanks guys,

Aaron

 

 

 

Last night’s Lego XP Game

Hi guys,

My names Aaron Braund, I’m the latest member to join RecWorks, I’m going to be looking after much of the marketing here. If anyone has any questions about the GDC or RecWorks then just fire me an email at ab@recworks.co.uk.

Last night we had our Lego XP Game event ran in association with Thoughtworks and Queen Mary University.

The event ran from 6pm till 7.30pm and went really well. 30 people came along, a blend of graduates, lecturers and consultants from Thoughtworks. The event was lively, with some great fun had by all. Afterwards, everyone went to the Half Moon pub for some beers and some informal networking.

Here is the event page – If you passed by and have some feedback please add it as a comment here – http://www.meetup.com/grad-dc/events/40795692/.

The event demonstrated the benefits of working within an agile team. Groups had to build Lego animals for a “client” following an agile software development process. Tasks were prioritised to be delivered on time so there was a high emphasis on teamwork. Groups worked well in general and produced some very interesting results. Meeting the clients ever changing needs and expectations was challenging, but ultimately fun for all!

Thanks first of all to Queen Mary University of London for allowing us to host the event in such a spacious environment.

Massive thanks also goes to the team at Thoughtworks who acted as the clients and explained the agile process so expertly.

Finally thanks to everyone in the group that made it out last night. The GDC is a rapidly growing network of undergraduate developers with a serious interest in programming. If you know anyone that would be interested in joining, please forward some details.

Our next event is the December Code Share. Details can be found here – http://www.meetup.com/grad-dc/events/41237242/ – avid Java puzzlers and coders should definitely come along!

One more thing, RecWorks are always actively recruiting for graduate developers, if you’re looking for a new role after uni then please contact myself, Laurence or Barry by phone or email for an informal chat. If you are not sure what to do after you graduate and would like to discuss your options or just get some free informal CV/Interview advice then either check out www.developercareers.co.uk or let me know and I’ll put you in touch with our careers concierge team.

Hope to see you at the next one!

Thanks,

Aaron