The dilemma most of the students face is whether they want to go with core profile or non-core profile. It depends on individual interest, what you enjoy doing, which can surely change with time; but you have to start exploring from somewhere.
Sophomore Year
In my second year, I had made up my mind to do a research intern in the summer. Believe me, its difficult to secure a research intern after second year. Although I had positive email replies from IIT Kanpur and IISC Bangalore too, but I thought having a foreign internship will add more value and it will be a new learning experience for me. So I decided to go with Hanyang University in Seoul, S. Korea. There I had a project based on ‘Granular Computing’. The topic was totally new for me and so I had to read a few research papers to get started with it.
Third Year: The Dilemma
Coming to third-year internship preparation, Initially, I was confused if I should study for SDE or core because I had a good enough grade which is an added benefit for core profile. But since I was already doing an internship, preparing for a third-year intern while doing an internship becomes very hectic, so I decided to focus on only one profile which I was inclined more towards, SDE, and I started studying data structures in my free time.
I had the advantage of having friends there and we used to prepare together whenever we were free from our ongoing project. Having a good peer group is very essential: it helps you learn faster and you can discuss various approaches towards the same problem.
Preparation
I started by studying basic sorting algorithms. Since I had a Computer Science Minor, I was already familiar with most of the data structures and algorithms so I could learn them quickly. Next, I practiced coding on Interviewbit which has a set of frequently asked problems on each topic. Because of lack of time, this was the best platform where I could practice. My friends also had to prepare for their third-year internships, so we used this to our benefit. We started giving Codeforces Contest together (we still continue to do that) which helps to build up speed and logical thinking towards problem-solving. Contests were mostly at late nights in Korean time but because of the time difference with India, the time had lost all meaning for us somehow. We used to discuss common GFG puzzles (even during breakfast or dinner) and it helped us learn how someone else approached the same problem in a new way. One edge of InterviewBit is that it has a scoreboard system and you can compete with your friends, but that is good as long as the competition is healthy.
One truth about the internship preparation is that you have to be honest with yourself. You can solve a dozen problems and you will get a new problem every time. Your focus should be to learn something from those dozen problems and apply everything you have learned so far to solve a new problem. By the end of my second-year internship, I was able to complete most of the topics on InterviewBit but I had still not touched Dynamic Programming and Graphs. Although I knew how to approach the problems because of the CS minor, learning how to code what you are thinking is a different thing which comes only with practice.
The Interviews
When we were back to our campus, companies started to come for hiring interns almost a week later. You won’t get much time to start coding preparation after coming to campus, you can only brush up what you have learned so far. In Slot 1 after the coding test, I was only selected for one company, ie Microsoft, but its second round is a group fly round where you have to write code on a paper. Although my answers were right, but they were looking for how neatly and precisely you can write your code and how readable your code is, which I learned after not getting selected for that round :P.
The most important part of the interview process is to keep your self-confidence high which is not as easy as it sounds. My friends helped me prepare for the HR rounds too ( it is advised to be prepared with the common HR questions like, Tell me about yourself, Why do you want to join our company? etc. beforehand).
Samsung
Now Coming back to Samsung Bangalore (SRIB), SRIB came for a spot offer and there was a coding test with three questions of medium level comprising pointers, trees and basic dynamic programming. I was selected for the interviews after the test. And the interviews started at around 5:30 pm. There were three rounds for the interviews. The first round was a group fly round where every group was allotted a mentor and a problem was given, we were supposed to write the code for it and explain it to the mentor and if he was satisfied with your approach, space and time complexity, then you were selected for the second round. The first round is the major elimination round, if you survive that you can survive further. In the second round, the interviewer asked me some puzzles from GFG and I already knew most of them, fortunately. I could answer all the puzzles and told him how I came up with the approach, the interviewer looked impressed.
The final round was a mix of technical and HR rounds. The interviewer first asked me questions about my resume. We discussed my second year internship and courses that I had taken. Lastly, he gave me a question from graphs. I told him the approach and all the corner cases and he was satisfied with that. He asked me if I can code it, but because of lack of practice in graphs, I knew I won’t be able to write which I told him honestly. He was actually quite impressed by my approach to solving that problem and so didn’t bother much with the code. The interview ended at around 2 am at night and I was selected for the internship at Samsung Research Bangalore.
The internship was supposed to be in Bangalore, they even mailed us the tickets, but because of Covid-19, SRIB arranged for a virtual internship for 2 months from 17 May to 13 July, about which we were informed in April.
The first day of the internship was a virtual orientation and getting to know about the company and their values. They told us about all the do’s and don’ts. We were made conscious of the phishing emails, malware, how to report in such cases and were supposed to set up our laptops for the virtual access of computers. I was part of the On-Device AI department, in which I was in the SNAP (Samsung Neural Acceleration Platform) team. I was assigned a mentor /manager who told me the project and we used to discuss the progress and how to move forward with the work on a daily basis. Because of work from home, I missed the opportunity to meet people for real, but I was connected to other people in the group and they were always there for any help. At the end of my internship, there was a virtual presentation with all the team members and team leaders and I was appreciated for my work.
To conclude, I will recommend preparing for interviews by taking mock interviews with your friends.
The take-away from my internship experience is that one should always be ready to learn new things quickly.
Try to keep your morale high even if you get rejected by some companies. This is difficult but there is something out there for you, which you will eventually get. :)
