1. Apply for a cs682 account on the department's Unix system.

2. Read as much as you can (at least through Chapter 10) in Brooks' The Mythical Man Month , (one of the assigned texts for the semester) and write a few paragraphs about your first impressions of some of what he has to say. You can summarize, or agree, or argue, or find out something about the project he directed (what was System/360? OS/360?) - the important thing is to engage with the material. We will discuss this book in class.

3. One of the first tasks this semester is to set up the project teams. We will make that a simulated job search exercise, since looking for a job is something you may have to do from time to time, and something worth practising.

   A prospective employer will want to see your resume, of course. If the resume looks promising, he or she will look at your home page to find out a little more about how you present yourself. So your first assignment is to prepare an up to date resume, write a home page, and post the resume there.

   Turn in hard copy of your resume as well.

   I will not specify a format or a style for either the resume or the home page. Anything tasteful will do. The resume should be reasonably compact, and easy to view on line and to print. The home page should show a photo of yourself as well as a link to the resume. It may contain other stuff too. Links to UMB and the UMB CS Department would be appropriate. Links to other sites (particularly professional ones) that you visit often will provide a viewer with feeling of how you approach your work. You may also include more personal information if you wish.

   If you need a photo, ask a friend with a digital camera to take on for you. If you have one you want to scan in you can use the scanner in the graduate computer lab (Healey library 3rd floor).

   If you create a publicly readable public_html directory in your unix home directory and put a publicly readable file index.html there then the cs department web server will find it and make it available the next day, at http://www.cs.umb.edu/Directories/grad.html.

   This is not a competitive exercise (although job searches sometimes are) so you should feel free to look at what your classmates are doing (at $CS682/classlist.html).

   Your resume and web site must be completely free of errors in spelling and grammar and contain no broken links. (Such errors can cost you an interview!) I recommend that you get proofreading help - even if you are a native speaker of English.

   If you already have a home page (many of you do) take this opportunity to update it (proofread, and test all links).

4. Write a brief memo in which you discuss what you learned from this assignment, including what you found out from the class discussion of Brooks and from looking at other resumes and home pages.

5. (Nothing to turn in ..). On Tuesday, September 18, the SD Best Practices Expo at the Hynes convention center starts. Free student admission to exhibits and to keynote speakers. If you can fit it into your schedule, try it out. It's fun. Vendors give away some cool free stuff.

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