Wow, I’ve been busy lately.   At least I’d like to think so.  Last week I had my finals and I passed all my classes :).  I even pulled a few surprises with my grades.  I’ve had some less than great luck with getting a co-op for this winter.  Here’s my story:

Well, there are 3 main companies involved.  Since I don’t want to burn any bridges, lets call them really-big-search-engine, consumer-end-printer, and web-based-collaboration.

It all started at the career fair in the fall… I first talked with web-based-collaboration, a company where my friend has co-oped and still works there part time.  Everything went well, and I ended up having an interview with them a week later.  They promptly sent me a job offer in the mail.  The pay wasn’t all that good (it was actually less than what I had been making for the past few summers), and it would have meant that I had to stay in Rochester, but it was also an interesting opportunity to learn some new things, and not be a testing monkey.  I called them up and asked them if I could wait until a specific date to give them a decision and they said OK.

At the career fair I also spoke with consumer-end-printer company.  It seemed to go pretty good–until they brought up their minimum GPA.  I explained to them that my GPA did not reflect my capabilities and performance and that I have proven myself at various companies in the past.  I didn’t expect to hear from them again because they seemed to be pretty strict on their policies, but I actually did about a week after I got the offer from web-based-collaboration.  They wanted to interview me.  And they did.  Funny thing is is that I wrote down the time wrong and was actually woken up by their phone call.  It went over well though.  Even when they brought up the GPA thing and asked me what mine was and mentioned that they had a minimum GPA that was higher than mine.  They actually called me back later that day saying that they were filling out the paperwork to hire me.   I was pretty excited.

During this time, I received an email from an engineer really-big-search-engine saying that he came across my resume and wanted to interview me.  I thought it was a joke at first because it was a pretty informal email, but from one of the companies that many people I know would give their left arm to work at, including myself at the time.  I had the interview with him, wrote him a bit of code, had an interview with somebody else, wrote some code.  He told me he was filling out the paperwork for the offer, but nothing was official yet.  I couldn’t believe I was actually going to work for this company.  A day or two later I received an email from the recruiter at the company saying that I needed a second interview.  I was befuddled because I already had a second interview.  Apparently, my second interview didn’t actually count.  The second second interview was scheduled a week later.  It was approaching the deadline that I had for giving web-based-collaboration an answer.  I was also a nervous wreck because I thought I would mess something up.  I didn’t and a few days after the interview I heard from the recruiter that they were filling out an offer for real this time.  She explained to me the training process and all the benefits and asked me when I would want to start and such.  I was pretty sure this was going to happen.  At least that’s how it came across.  She said she just needed to clear everything with the VP and would get back to me.  She called me a couple minutes later, asking me for my GPA.  I told her, and she said it might be a problem.  My heart sunk.  She then asked me to email her my unofficial transcript.  I did.  About 10 minutes later, I heard back from her, “I’m sorry…”  I was absolutely devastated for about three days.  Rejection is okay, but how this company went about things just wasn’t right.  As a kicker, I have two friends working there as engineers right now.  One graduated from the same school as me with the same degree with a lesser GPA than mine.  Another friend of mine was a drop-out here.  He didn’t make it to graduation (albeit, he is also a FreeBSD contributor and that might have helped).

Devastated I was, but I contacted consumer-end-printer a few days later seeing why I hadn’t heard anything from them yet.  They said, “We thought we gave you a job offer already,” and I said, “No, I haven’t received anything.”  After a little looking up they realized they gave an offer to another Lewis, but that wasn’t a problem.  The recruiter explained to me all the benefits of working there, how they would house me in a really nice apartment by myself, how my transportation would be reimbursed, and all of that good stuff.  This was sounding great.  He then asked for an unofficial transcript.  I said something to the extent of, “My GPA won’t be a problem, right?”  And that’s where it began.  He said that he’d have to see, and that they were very strict about their policy of a minimum GPA.  He got back to me a day later saying that this wasn’t going to fly, even though I told them my GPA during my interview and at the career fair.  There was nothing he could do, even though I was by far the best candidate for the position.  My heart sunk even further.

I called web-based-collaboration right away to accept the offer, but request if I could only co-op for a three month term instead of a six month term because I really wanted to get out of Rochester, at least this spring.  I mentioned that I would still work there either way.  She said she’d get back to me Wednesday.  Thursday I get a call from her, “Sorry, but we’re going to have to withdraw our offer…”  Yep! They did it.  They withdrew it because they didn’t feel I was interested in the position.  I can’t really blame them though, I probably came off that way.  It was just the cherry on the sundae.  Wait, no, it isn’t.  I was called by HP a few days before that saying they wanted to interview me for winter quarter, but I had to turn it down the opportunity because I thought I had already accepted the position at web-based-collaboration.  Funny how things work out.

The thing is is that I don’t need to co-op.  I have at least 4 quarters worth of previous experience to count as my co-op requirements to graduate.  I want to co-op and therefore since I have a choice I refuse to be just another “code monkey” or do testing because I find that stuff really boring and that’s what most of the companies what their co-ops for.  Even though I have a lot of experience, it’s only at two different companies (although very similar work) and I need experience in other places so I am more well-rounded, and can figure out what I really like to do (aside from photography).  Also, this winter is going to murder me.  I am taking Operating Systems, Systems Programming, Data Communications and Networking, and Intro. to Computer Vision.  Well, I am actually psyched.  I love programming project classes.

I also have this really great idea for a new type of Web 2.0 site that I am going to start implementing with my friend, Karl this winter if I have enough time.  We decided to use Ruby and ActiveRecord, but no Rails, because I find Rails overrated and a bit superfluous.  But yes, it will be great, even if it doesn’t work.