3rd year CSE College placements guide for those who Did Nothing for the first 2 years of engineering(me too)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinod-b-449541202/

Hello, this is void. I wanted to write this for a very long time, and finally I’ve moved my lazy ass to write something (the same reason why I wasted 2.5 years of my engineering degree). This article will solely focus on the perspective of college placement. This might not be an effective strategy to become a better engineer, but it is helpful to someone who wants to crack their college placement after wasting two crucial years of college life. Off campus job search is even more difficult in terms of finding interview test links and referrals, which I will cover on another day. This guide is written from the perspective of someone who learned nothing from his two years of engineering. This guide doesn’t include CGPA because, regardless of how bad your CGPA is, you will get your fair share of opportunities, and by following this guide, you can maximise your chances of receiving an offer.

I was able to get an off-campus FAANG offer as well as a very good on-campus offer, so the information is reliable:)

PART 1-THE REALISATION

I think if you are reading this article, then surely you have realised that a lot of work needs to be done to get placed. Yes, you are correct, and I apologise if this sounds extremely disappointing. You will eventually end up with a job, but it will not be easy to get a job from top companies, even though it is an on-campus offer. Six months of hardwork can put you in a far better place. Okay, let’s get straight into the actual steps to be taken. Staying motivated throughout the prep is difficult, so create a habit so that you can be more disciplined and consistent.

PART 2- BASEMENT

The foundation is very important. The first step is learning a language. My preferred languages are C++, Java, or Python or Any language will do good. The first step is learning a language. My preferred languages are C++, Java, or Python. Any language will do. Learning a lot of programming languages is good, but at this point in time, sticking to one and mastering the basics of any one of your preferred languages would be the best choice. If you are proficient in one language, it is easy to transition to another because most concepts remain consistent across languages and only the syntax varies. Learning a language is just a YouTube search away. At first, it might be overwhelming, but eventually we would use the programming language again and again, and thus these syntax would become familiar. Knowing until STL in C++ or collections in Java would be a good starting point. Simultaneously, learn OOPS concepts in your language as well (this will be used in your interview rounds). This is your foundation. You are ready to go if you can convert the given basic problem statement into code. HackerEarth has a lot of these statement-to-code kinds of problems that don’t involve DSA.

PART 3- HERO INTRODUCTION

This phase is learning data structure. You might have attended this class in your second year, and you would have written codes on paper to insert, delete, update a stack or queue, and so on.

If all those codes written on paper piss you off, I have good news. We are not going to learn this in that boring way. Don’t get me wrong. Knowing those basics is very essential. for example, in a stack, if we insert an element, it goes and stores on top of one another, and when we delete an element, the topmost element gets deleted. This is the concept. This is very much needed to start solving DSA-related problems. Over time, implementing a stack that deletes and inserts elements using a linked list to perform these functionalities will be understood after coding for a while (this is what you would have written on your exam paper, remember?). So how things work internally isn’t our primary objective as of now.

This so-called “something” in the diagram is the functionality performed by the data structure. Each data structure does something unique, and this black box can be simply implemented using the collection or STL or whatever it is called in your respective programming language.

So half the work is done by the programming language itself. The work that we need to do is to understand what each of those data structures does so that they can be applied at appropriate places.

If you are comfortable with understanding what these do, then you should look into how they are implemented just for the sake of a complete understanding of how things work. If you think it’s way too much, then, who knows, in placements, to evaluate your depth on concepts, they might even ask how they are implemented in your interviews.

PART 4- HERO’S GRIND TOWARDS SUCCESS

This is a crucial part. This is where things get challenging, and this phase differentiates how well and quickly someone arrives at the answer in their interview. That is practising. Practise solving a lot of problems. Leetcode is your best friend. start solving problems every day. Be consistent. After learning the language, start solving the daily challenge problem. At first, you won’t know the answer. That’s completely okay. Even after solving 100s of problems, I still get struck at times and refer the solution. See the solution on YouTube,learn how they implement it, and try solving similar problems to get a good grasp of the technique used. You will come across a new data structure topic or new algorithm when you are unable to solve it. Now topic-wise search for this data structure and start from an easy problem and move on to medium ones. At first, it will be overwhelming, but after a few weeks, you will get the hang of it. Yes, quality over quantity, but the more quantity you solve, the faster you reach the optimised answer. Only through practise will you be able to understand how a specific problem is solved using algorithms such as sliding window, greedy, dynamic programming, or binary search etc.

At the beginning, it will take a few hours a day, but as the days pass and things get easier, just one hour a day will do. However busy your day is, set aside one hour every day for DSA and make it your routine. We are all humans, and motivation lasts for only a few weeks. Routine gives you the discipline that will take you places.

Give lots of contests. Your ranking on these programming websites doesn’t matter in your interviews, so don’t be afraid of ranking drops and give as many contests as possible. Since contests are time-bound, they mimic the actual first screening code of an interview. Upsolve the problems that you were unable to solve during the competition. By this you can learn new techniques to solve a problem.

I will surely cover more on data structures and algorithm in another blog.

PART 5- HERO’S SECRET WEAPONS

Now let me deep dive into projects. Since you will be practising DSA every day, I assume that you will get strong in coding before placement season starts. With a strong DSA knowledge, you will be able to clear the first round of coding tests and move on to the interview round. This is where I messed it up. I was able to reach the interview rounds, but I couldn’t crack my first few companies. Upon introspection, I was able to find out that there is a loophole in my projects.

I had a few projects on my resume, but I was not able to answer the questions that the interviewer asked me related to those projects. My mindset was that if we have a project on some trending, so-called “cutting edge” tech projects, even without proper understanding, my chance of clearing the interview is very, very high. Later, I realised this was absolutely wrong.

Think from the interviewer’s point of view. All they check is if the project is implemented on his own or if it is a team project, he must know his part in detail as well as what his other team members did in the project. Even if your project is very complex and huge, if you don’t have a clear understanding of how things work, there is no use. So have projects on your resume for which you can clearly explain the workings and the tech stacks used.

There are startups that recruit strong developers, and the majority of them take you in and give you the required training to fit into their tech stack. So most of the companies in college placement test the fundamentals in their interviews.

My advice for having projects is to have three projects on your resume.

1. MAJOR PROJECT. This should be your go-to project if the interviewer asks you to explain your favourite project. You should be able to answer every question related to your project. Don’t worry, most interviewers will stick around and ask questions that are only relevant to your project. You should be able to continuously explain it for more than 10 minutes (10 minutes is a satire) . That’s the kind of depth you should have.
2. Minor project 1
3. Minor Project 2

One web development or app development project is a must-have on your resume to cater to the many companies that specifically want developers. Even if they do not explicitly request development projects, most interviewers have good knowledge of web/app development and would love to test you with questions from their area of expertise. One project involving machine learning/data science and one other project of your choice. Computer science keeps evolving, and one must be able to adapt to different tech stacks over a period of time. Here you can see that a variety of technologies have been covered in your projects, from web development to data science, which makes you a candidate who can adapt to whatever tech stack has been given to you.

Note: Don’t worry about the size of your project. If you can understand how your code works, then you are good to go.

PART-6 CLIMAX

A few weeks before your placement season starts, make notes for OOPS,DBMS,SQL queries and OS. If you have the time, you can also study networking. This is significant because interviewers enjoy testing your knowledge of computer science fundamentals, and these are their favourite topics to ask questions about aside from your project. Making notes helps to revise them at the last minute because placement season is fast-paced and there are multiple companies coming at the same time and interviews happening on consecutive days. These can be learned from YouTube and I would highly recommend seeing interview questions on these topics to know how the questions are asked.

PART 7-CONCLUSION

Even though this guide says it is specifically for third-year students, even second-year students can follow it. Placement season is unpredictable. You might be more skilled than your friends, but they might get placed before you. Dont get disheartened. Strong skills will eventually get you a good job. Best of luck.