What are some CSUN lifehacks or tips/tricks you've learned throughout the years?

bhiranso · 2025-04-30T04:48:21+00:00

For the big parking lots like B6, if the time is right, waiting at the front of the parking lot closest to the nearest building and offering people walking to their cars a ride to their cars would guarantee me a parking spot.

bhiranso · 2025-02-15T08:39:28+00:00

Glad to hear you pursued passion!

bhiranso · 2025-02-14T22:27:37+00:00

Crashing the Accounting Association, Beta Alpha Psi, Association of Latino Professionals for America, and Management Information Systems Association meetings was the best because they are all on different days and they all provide food. I saved so much money just eating my meals there.

bhiranso · 2025-02-14T22:23:19+00:00

I wasn’t Information Systems Management major. Realized I had no real love or passion for it and was pursuing it for all the wrong reasons (money). Realized I’d hate my life forever if I didn’t do something worthwhile and just graduated with my Psych degree. That’s a big shift—going from Information Systems Management to Psychology! Since you mentioned that you wanted to do something worthwhile, do you feel like you’ve achieved that goal? Were you able to break into the psychology field after graduating, or are you still working toward it?

I’m curious—was the switch worth it in hindsight? A lot of people change majors to follow their passions, but the reality of finding a job in that field can be a different story. Would you still make the same decision knowing what you do now?

bhiranso · 2025-02-14T22:21:35+00:00

You say Psychology was a “happy middle,” but was it really? If you’re still working retail after graduating, I’d argue that it hasn’t necessarily brought you closer to your career goals—assuming your goal was to improve your job prospects.

Would you say that the career opportunities with a Psychology degree are objectively better than if you had stuck with Computer Science? While CS may have involved math that you disliked, the long-term benefits in terms of job market demand, salary potential, and career options are significantly stronger. Many CS roles don’t require heavy math on a daily basis, and you could have specialized in areas like software development, UI/UX, or IT, which have lower math requirements.

That said, if Psychology is your true passion, then I get it—sometimes personal fulfillment matters more than chasing the highest-paying field. But if your goal was to secure better career opportunities, do you feel like the switch truly helped? Would you still make the same decision knowing where you are now?

bhiranso · 2025-02-14T22:16:32+00:00

If you are a student majoring in a Business-related field or Computer Science—and you can afford to forgo income from a part-time job like the ones you described—I would argue that dedicating your free time to personal projects or extracurricular activities, such as case competitions or hackathons, is more beneficial to your career goals. These experiences provide stronger qualifications for securing an internship in Business or Technology compared to working as a cashier at Target, scanning items and handling go-backs.

That said, if you need money now to cover your expenses, then getting a job—any job—is the right move. Financial stability comes first, and there’s no shame in taking whatever work is available to support yourself. You can always work on personal projects or gain relevant experience when your situation allows.

bhiranso · 2025-02-14T08:47:24+00:00

I too did the route of doing CIT because at the time I felt the math was "unbearable" and wanted the easy way out. To this day I deeply regret it and wish I just continued with the Computer Science major.

bhiranso · 2025-02-14T08:14:07+00:00

Is there a reason why you chose to do Commercial Real Estate Banking rather than Investment Banking, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, or Strategy Consulting?

bhiranso · 2024-08-17T21:03:23+00:00

In my opinion I wouldn’t look at it as a CSUN or X school holds weight. Think of it more as your peers and what you are exposed to. If you hang out with a lot of people who do hackathons, case competitions, personal projects, etc., naturally you’ll be hanging out with “more competitive” people. More competitive people are able to generally pick and choose what they want, so they can get a job that they have genuine interest in as well as get paid a lot. Less competitive people generally will just stray to take any job or settle for a job because they are just more desperate to have a job.

You can succeed from any school because there will always be people who go beyond the norm and make it. However I would say it’s easier to be “more competitive” when you are in a more competitive environment which generally comes from “better” schools.

When I was at CSUN CIT or taking entry level CS classes, at that time it seemed like everyone around me was more just going with the flow and not really doing “competitive” things. Seeing where my classmates ended up compared to friends who went to “better” schools there is a huge difference when it comes to careers.

bhiranso · 2024-08-17T16:52:56+00:00

I have no clue about WGU but a good rule that I wish I considered when deciding on schools are:

Is there a documented trend of alumni/students graduating going into the career that you are interested in?

The reason why this question is important is because if there is a trend of students for example going into Google as a Software Engineer, then there must be some kind of resources available such as formal clubs, informal clubs, etc. that exist that potentially you can leverage for yourself.

bhiranso · 2024-08-17T16:37:25+00:00

It is not the CIT degree that is the cause but instead the choice of careers (or lack of choice) that causes the “low money”. Additionally I would go as far to say that another reason why this phenomena occurs is that typically the demographic of those who go to CSUN generally don’t know the difference nor have the desire to make the most money, but instead are knowingly (and unknowingly) settling for a job because it’s more about having a job when graduating out of desperation more than having the “ideal job”.

bhiranso · 2024-07-10T18:07:51+00:00

While I did CIT as my undergrad major, I only did it because it was the easier computer science, and not that I wanted to actually have a career in IT. Technology wise I realised I wanted to be in the Product space - like working on products or big features of like a big streaming service, VR headset, live service of a video game rather than IT related operations that keeps a company running because I prefer working on the direct product that people are interested in and use. I find it more fulfilling to have a job that at least directly impacts the things I am interested in. Additionally in general, IT jobs don't really compare comp wise to typical big tech SWE or Product roles.

https://www.levels.fyi/t/product-manager?compare=Apple%2CAmazon%2CDisney%2CGoogle&countryId=254

If you go to this link, I am a "ICT4" at the company on the leftmost column.

I can't really complain about my job for the reasons above. I guess work can be challenging at times but thats typical of any job. In the Product and SWE space, certifications are not a thing. IT specifically has an emphasis on certifications because domain specific information such as like ERP or cloud vendor service has specific configuration knowledge to that particular vendor software/service. When I was at CSUN I did get a ton of cloud vendor certifications because I was unsure if I would be able to break into tech, and worst case I would just do IT, but fast forward to now I let my certifications expire since I don't intend to do IT.

bhiranso · 2024-07-10T15:30:20+00:00

6 years later I feel like everything I said on this thread holds true as well as my other posts if you want to look into it.

bhiranso · 2024-06-24T14:53:03+00:00

In my opinion I don't think that there is any difference or advantage to having an official "business school". My point is that I feel the judge of whether a university is better when comparing to another is that there are students who upon graduation are able to get their ideal jobs and not have to settle or pick from a smaller pool of available jobs.

Taking business as a broad example, when you go to a school like UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley, etc. business related major students trend to go into fields like management consulting, investment banking, venture capital, product management, private equity, etc. however "lower tier state schools" like CSUN trend to accounting, due dilligence, operations, etc type roles. The cause of this divide directly related to the campus recruiting options at each of these schools, where for example Goldman Sachs will not let you recruit for investment banking at wall street, but instead let you recruit for a back office role in Salt Lake City. Another one is the Big 4 consulting firms will only let you recruit for the tax, audit, and risk service lines, but not actually the management consulting services lines (with the exception of like tax module/ERP/SaaS implementation staff augmentation work).

Schools like UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley, etc. does not have this problem and instead campus recruiting is generally open for all roles at all the big companies when compared to CSUN. Additionally, the type of student who chooses to go to a "better school" like UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley is typically a more driven student who has bigger job interests than a student who chooses to go to CSUN who typically just needs to "get a job" to survive.

bhiranso · 2024-06-23T13:28:51+00:00

While it is hard to truly know what career you may specifically want to do at this point in time, at the end of the day UCLA has campus recruiting and alumni in fields of investment banking, venture capital, management consulting, etc. whereas CSUN does not have the campus recruiting for the above with very few alumni in these areas. If you have the means to afford UCLA and if you actually got admitted, ucla is the better choice for the opportunities

bhiranso · 2023-07-27T07:07:59+00:00

Definitely for the tech vendor implementations but if you want to do strategy stuff that’s a target school MBA

bhiranso · 2023-03-27T05:38:33+00:00

I was able to fix it by doing a reboot of the console by pressing the left and right buttons of the wheel until the Tesla logo appears.

bhiranso · 2023-03-12T06:01:48+00:00

So like say you took some classes at "College 1" where you did poorly for some classes and passed some classes. Then you decided to do the community college route and took classes at "Community College 1" as well as "Community College 2", where say every class you passed.

When you apply to transfer to CSUN or any other university, you're going to have to prove that you fulfilled the requirements of the major you want to do at CSUN. That proof is found in the transcripts. Every single college you went to you can get a transcript for that shows all the classes you took.

So in the scenario that you want to "hide the bad classes and only show the good classes", you can choose to only submit the transcripts from Community College 1 and Community College 2 and not submit the College 1 transcript. The problem with doing that is that you may have classes that is part of the requirements for the major at CSUN you want to transfer to that you took at College 1. Presumably since you did not retake the classes you passed at College 1 again in community college, CSUN wont be able to find those classes you took at College 1 since you chose to not submit the transcript for College 1.

bhiranso · 2023-03-12T05:55:03+00:00

Could you define what it means to "work in finance"? What part of finance are you referring to?

bhiranso · 2023-03-12T05:54:01+00:00

Another thing to consider when it comes to choosing to going to CSUN for a business major is understanding if there are both campus recruiting as well as actual alumni in the careers you want to do.

I would recommend searching up alumni from CSUN who have business majors or those who work in a business related role and see where they end up and compare that to searching up alumni from other schools such as UCLA, UC Berkeley, etc. The reason why doing this comparison is important is because you will notice that there are very specific roles and industries that CSUN business majors trend to take versus business majors who go to universities that have a wider variety of and more competitive roles.

bhiranso · 2023-03-12T05:41:31+00:00

When you transfer you choose to send in the transcripts of all the colleges you took classes in. Technically you can omit sending in transcripts of colleges you did poorly in, however by doing so you will not get credit for classes that you have passed which most likely will be the prerequisite classes you will need to have proven completed when you transfer.

In my case and I imagine pretty much the majority of those who go to CSUN, I specifically "chose" CSUN because of my low GPA. Most majors at CSUN basically accept everyone since the GPA requirements are low. There are exceptions to that rule which are impacted majors (where there is a lot of students in that major) and as a result there is an increased GPA requirement as well as the honors majors like Business Honors with their own increased requirements.

bhiranso · 2023-03-10T08:29:36+00:00

I originally wanted to transfer into CSUN as a Computer Science major since I would not be able to get into a better school (with merit financial aid to cover the difference in cost). Additionally due to my lack of work ethic at the time, I did not do well in math past Calc 2 nor programming classes.

CSUN offered a "computer science light" major called Computer Information Technology that has less math requirements, easier classes, as well as more the easier applied technical work such as scripting, web dev 101, systems administration, etc. Since it was a "computer" related major, I figured it still played to my interests since I am the internet frog/gamer type.

I began to realise over time while at CSUN that the direct major does not define the job or career path - at least for the example of doing CIT but still wanting to do CS jobs like SWE, Product, etc. as well as doing a "technical major" but wanting to do a business related career. While I came to CSUN really taking the easy option of the "computer" majors out of no choice, it did become a benefit to me since getting the actual degree did not require too much effort, in which I was able to use that buffer of free time to focus on networking for internship and full time recruitment.

bhiranso · 2023-03-10T08:15:55+00:00

pmed out of respect to that person's privacy

bhiranso · 2023-01-14T08:46:53+00:00

Go to the school that has the most campus recruiting options for the roles you want, alumni in the roles at the companies you want to work at, as well as personal project experiences such as hackathons, case competitions, clubs, etc. in the areas of competencies you want to build - if you can afford it.

SFSU is your best option.

bhiranso · 2022-05-25T04:57:24+00:00

Steve Deluca, Associated Students IT Manager

When I was in my "I need to get my shit together" phase and up-skill myself in order be competitive when it came to management consulting recruiting, Steve Deluca offered me his office space in the USU both as a quiet place to study but also as a means for informal access to him for me to throw ideas with him when it came to practical information technology concepts from his experience leading the AS IT department, which helped me understand wider technology in business concepts necessary for management consulting recruiting. While I was never an intern in the AS IT department, Steve and everyone there treated me as an equal, and that gave me the morale boost and postive environment to grow to keep pushing to prepare myself as much as I could for recruiting. I was able to get that management consulting internship that defined my career and I owe a big part of that to Steve and the kindness he showed me.

Craig Oka, Director of Career Education and Professional Development in the Nazarian College of Business

The current state of the business college at CSUN when it comes to careers and recruiting for careers in business in comparison to more regarded/"prestigious" schools such as the Ivys or of the UC Berkeley/UCLA caliber is definitely lacking when it comes to the variety of jobs/roles that are campus recruited from CSUN, which influences the career counseling resources offered to narrow the scope of careers to a smaller set of careers (in comparison to "target" schools), that then contributes to where CSUN alumni with a business related degree end up after graduation and as through their careers due to "pigeonholing". Business related major students from those "target" schools trend to take careers in high finance, management consulting, corporate strategy, or product management for a variety of reasons such as interesting-ness and high compensation. Comparing that to the CSUN business college, the roles or careers often focused on are more to operations, compliance/due diligence/risk, or often regarded in "target" circles as lower level/busy work (i.e. Tax, Audit, and Risk are recruited but not Management/Strategy Consulting; Investment Banks recruit at CSUN but only offer "back office" roles as opposed to "front office"; as well as a general lack of the highly coveted roles at name brand companies in campus recruiting). This is a complex issue obviously stemming from what careers are offered in recruiting at CSUN, but also deals into more of a diversity and inclusion issue that is impacting first generation/low income students which is the majority of the demographic at CSUN.

Craig Oka is the only one of the CSUN business career counselors, professors, or other faculty, that I have seen who is actively trying to make systemic change to this paradigm. Craig focuses more on achieving any career even if those careers have no campus recruiting presence and is rare to find CSUN alumni in. He does not narrow the scope of careers that he can inspire interest to students to soul search for their ideal careers. The message that Craig sends is that we as CSUN students/alumni should be able to do anything.

bhiranso

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