UMD CS Students Connect With Employers at Career Fair

The University of Maryland Department of Computer Science brought 1,169 students and representatives from 59 employers together at its Fall 2026 Career and Internship Fair on Sept. 28. Held at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union, the event gave students direct access to recruiters seeking candidates for internships and full-time positions in computer science and related fields.

For students, the fair offered a chance to speak directly with employers and better understand how their coursework and experiences translate to the workplace.

Senior Sofia Santiago, who is pursuing a double degree in computer science and social data science, said the event gave her time to have more detailed conversations with recruiters.

“My experience at the career fair has been very positive,” Santiago said. “I’ve been able to talk to all the companies and recruiters that I intended to talk to, which is a win.”

Santiago shared that one conversation with representatives from Appian highlighted the importance of technical preparation and involvement outside the classroom.

“They’re looking for students who are involved in student organizations on campus, and they’re also looking for students who have the technical skills in the targeted positions,” Santiago said. “If you’re doing software engineering, they want to know your coding background, projects you’ve done and also how you’re implementing your software engineering skills outside of school.”

She also saw the fair as an opportunity to expand her professional network and learn about employers she hadn't previously considered.

“The fair has helped me learn what opportunities are out there in the first place and companies that are not necessarily known or super big,” Santiago said. “I see this year a lot of new companies that I didn’t see last year.”

Junior computer science major Bishop Daheu attended the fair to explore and connect with employers.

“I’m just looking for career opportunities, looking for growth and a way and a means to apply my skills that I’ve gathered up to this point,” Daheu said.

Daheu said he is particularly interested in government technology and government contracting, including software engineering, cloud engineering and solutions architect roles. He prepared by researching companies’ missions, values, projects and technologies before speaking with recruiters.

That preparation reflects what some employers said they look for when meeting students.

Maggie Neff, a senior data scientist at Fannie Mae and a UMD alumna who studied mathematics and economics, attended the fair to recruit students for data science and software engineering opportunities. Fannie Mae representatives were recruiting for full-time and internship positions in its Single Family Analytics group, along with technology-focused software engineering internships.

Neff said candidates may come from a range of academic backgrounds, but employers look for qualities that apply across disciplines.

“The underlying factor for all of those is intellectual curiosity and an analytical mindset that can be applied in a lot of ways in a lot of different roles,” Neff said.

She said students can demonstrate those qualities through internships, research and class projects. Resumes should explain the tools and programming languages they used, the problems they worked on and, when possible, the measurable results.

Neff added that researching an employer and asking informed follow-up questions can also help students during career fair conversations and interviews.

“It’s nice to see that someone has done some due diligence to look into what we do broadly as a company, but then also in the specific role,” Neff said. “I think it’s cool when people want to hear about our favorite parts of the job or projects that we’ve worked on and have follow-up questions that show engagement.”

A recent survey by the University Career Center shows that UMD’s Department of Computer Science achieved a 95% job placement rate for the Class of 2025, which includes graduates from August and December 2024 and May 2025. The rate includes graduates who were employed, continuing their education or pursuing other post-graduation opportunities.

—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications