From Campus to Career
Students choose specialisations from course names alone
They pick between cloud, data, security and product without having seen any of them. This session puts a practitioner behind each — describing an ordinary working day, what entry-level people are given, and how the teams around them are organised.
A course name is not a description of the work.
“Cloud computing”, “data science” and “cybersecurity” tell a student nothing about what somebody in those roles does between nine and six. So specialisations get chosen on reputation, salary rumour and what a friend picked.
An hour with somebody doing the job answers more than a semester of the module description.
What students see
29 topics across 5 areas. Five views of engineering work.
A Day in the LifeThe ordinary version, not the highlight reel.5
- A day in the life of a software engineer
- What entry-level engineers actually do
- How much is coding
- How much is meetings, review and coordination
- What the first six months look like
How the Work MovesFrom a requirement to something customers use.6
- How software goes from requirement to production
- How software product teams work
- How engineering teams collaborate
- How code review works
- How releases happen
- What goes wrong
How Companies Are StructuredWho sits where, and who decides what.5
- How technology companies are structured
- Engineering, product and design
- Who owns a decision
- How teams are sized
- Where a fresher fits
The SpecialisationsEach described by somebody in it.7
- Careers in AI & machine learning
- Careers in data science & analytics
- Careers in cybersecurity
- Careers in cloud & DevOps
- Careers in product management
- Careers in business analysis
- Careers in QA & testing
Beyond CodingEngineering careers that are not development.6
- Engineering careers beyond coding
- Technical sales and customer-facing engineering
- Solutions and pre-sales
- Technical writing
- Support engineering
- Consulting
Students who do not enjoy writing code often conclude they chose wrong. Frequently they have simply only seen one role.
Questions students get to ask
- What did you actually do yesterday?
- What does a fresher get given first?
- What did you misunderstand as a student?
- What is difficult about your role?
- How did you end up in this specialisation?
- What should I learn before applying?
- What surprised you about the industry?
Who students hear from
- Working engineers
- Data professionals
- Cloud and DevOps engineers
- Security professionals
- QA engineers
- Product managers
- Business analysts
- Engineering managers
How the session runs
Several practitioners from different specialisations, each describing a normal working day rather than a career highlight. One traces a feature from requirement to production so students see how the roles connect. Open questions throughout — this session works best when it is mostly questions.
What your students leave with
- A concrete picture of what entry-level engineers actually do
- How software goes from a requirement to production
- How technology companies and teams are structured
- What several specialisations involve beyond their course descriptions
- That engineering careers extend well past writing code
- A shortlist of roles worth investigating further
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
An hour with somebody doing the job beats a semester of the module description.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.