“It’s the people you meet who can help you succeed in the competitive job market.”
LingRong Syu arrived in Silicon Valley last year with several years’ experience as a mobile app developer in Taipei, Taiwan. When she signed up for the Computer Programming certificate program, she already had a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and six years’ of experience working on a mobile app to operate security cameras. She still wanted to learn more, to study with experts in the heart of the tech revolution.
“I realized how important it was for me to improve my technical ability,” Syu says. “Education is very different in Taiwan.”
She studied C++ Programming, Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, Hadoop, Python, iOs app development and more. Within a few months she had an internship at a local startup and, after three quarters, she earned her certificate and began looking for a job with an optional practical training (OPT) visa.
“One of my teachers brought a friend into the class from LinkedIn to help us practice interviewing,” she says. More than the training, however, has been the networking that’s helped her secure new job interviews. It’s the people you meet who can help you succeed in the competitive job market, she says.
“People are creative and talented here,” she says. “It’s made me realize that everything is possible. It pushes me to do to keep doing what I want to do.”
Her advice to other students is simple. “Don’t give up.”
Visit the UCSC Extension Computer Programming Certificate Program.