UMD CS Students Network With Employers at Career Fair

Students filled the Adele H. Stamp Student Union on September 22, eager to take their next step toward careers in the technology field. The University of Maryland Department of Computer Science’s Fall 2025 Career and Internship Fair attracted 1,994 students who met with 223 representatives from 58 employers. For many, the fair was an opportunity to move beyond online applications and make meaningful, in-person connections.

“Beyond coursework, I look for students who show initiative outside of the classroom,” said Lam Bui (B.S. ’07, computer science), an alum now working as a software engineer at the National Security Agency. “If someone is studying AI, I want to see whether they’ve built projects that train models or created applications. It shows they’re applying knowledge, not just absorbing it.”

Bui, who has returned to campus several times as a recruiter, noted particular strengths among the students he spoke with. 

“A lot of students this year are focused on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence,” he said. “These are some of the hardest areas in computer science, and they’re also the ones that companies are racing to integrate into their work. It’s encouraging to see so many students already engaged with them.”

The fair featured a range of companies, from major tech firms like Google and Leidos to financial institutions such as JP Morgan and government agencies. Students navigated the crowded event hall with their resumes in hand, hoping to make a strong impression that could lead to internships or full-time jobs.

For senior Maurice Barksdale, the fair was about finding a company that valued the kind of ownership he experienced during his recent internship at Amazon.

“I’m really looking for new grad roles in either software engineering or machine learning,” Barksdale said. “At Amazon, I built applications that directly supported other people and had an impact on stakeholders. That experience made me realize I want to work somewhere that trusts engineers to take on responsibility for their products.”

He credited his coursework with preparing him to walk confidently into conversations with recruiters. 

“No one class prepared me the most—it was all of them collectively,” Barksdale said. “In projects where we learned algorithms or worked in teams, we built experiences that now help me answer interview-style questions. When someone asks me about a challenge or about collaboration, I already have stories to share.”

Senior Aneesa Ayornu also came to the fair with a clear focus. As a student in UMD’s ACES minor, which emphasizes cybersecurity, she is aiming for full-time positions in threat detection and cyber analytics.

“I got interested in security early in my computer science years,” Ayornu said. “Through ACES, I’ve done malware analysis, vulnerability assessments and other hands-on work. That kind of experience really made me want to pursue cybersecurity as my career.”

Ayornu noted that the ACES program connected classroom learning with industry practice by offering labs and projects designed by professionals, while university networking events and career services created pathways to apply those skills in professional environments.

She added that her technical preparation included tools and programming languages she sees being used by employers. 

“In cybersecurity, I’ve used Ghidra, Python, Java and C,” Ayornu said. “When I talk with recruiters, I can tell them the exact tools and languages I’ve worked with because they match what’s used in the industry.”

For employers, the event was as much about identifying talent as it was about encouraging students to prepare early. Bui said that he values seeing underclassmen at events like this one, even if they are not yet looking for full-time roles.

“It’s good to see freshmen and sophomores coming to career fairs,” Bui said. “When they start learning about companies and internships early, they build the kind of experience that really matters when it’s time to enter the job market.”

—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications