Computer Science Major Accepts Position with Microsoft
Posted: January 22, 2020 | Author: Kierstin Pitcher-Holloway | Read Time: 2 minutes
After years of preparation, international student and computer science major Amine Toualbi will begin his career with Microsoft after his graduation from Southern Utah University this spring.
For Toualbi, the application process began over a year ago. He was determined and had done everything he could to be ready the moment the application for a position at Microsoft opened, from building his resume to spending nights and weekends in the library working on his coding skills.
“Last year I waited a while because I was worried that I wasn’t good enough,” said Toualbi. “So this year I applied early. I had prepared a lot and worked a lot. Coding interviews are not behavioral, it’s a test: a problem and you have to solve it.”
Toualbi soon found that his hard work had been worth it, two weeks after applying at Microsoft, a recruiter called and asked him some preliminary questions. The next day he received an email inviting him to the next round of onsite interviews.
“I had three weeks between the time I received the invitation until the interview,” said Toualbi. “So I sacrificed my whole social life even more. I would stay in the library until midnight, every night and I allowed myself to be average on homework; it was sacrifices here and there.”
Toualbi was flown out to Microsoft headquarters where he had a full day of interviews. These interviews went well and since then Toualbi has been offered and accepted a position with Microsoft.
If Toualbi could give any advice to other students with high goals it would be, “Don’t limit yourself,” said Toualbi. “I had this mindset for a long time, that because I go to SUU and not MIT or Stanford that I should lower my expectations.”
At first he thought if nobody else had done it, he wouldn’t be able to, but that changed. “It was really the beginning of last year when I decided I wanted this,” said Toualbi. “Don’t lower your expectations. Just because you’ve gone to a smaller state school that most people haven’t heard of doesn’t mean you can’t go to these competitive places, you just have to be willing to make sacrifices.”
Toualbi was first interested in majoring in computer science because he enjoyed hacking movies and was curious about technology.
“Everyone uses phones and websites all the time and I was curious to know how everything worked behind the scenes,” said Toualbi. “It was more just curiosity when I started.”
Since leaving France to attend SUU Toualbi has received the Gibson Scholarship, recently completed a summer internship with the New York Times and was invited to attend the Forbes Under 30 Summit, a prestigious conference for young adults, as a Forbes Under 30 Scholar.
The mission of the Computer Science and Information Systems Department is to provide a learning-centered environment that enables students, like Toualbi to achieve their goals and empower them to compete on a global level for careers in government, and industry.
Tags: Computer Science College of Engineering and Computational Sciences
