Indian college students, STOP doing ML/AI in college!!
Intrigued enough? Let me explain.
Just around the time I got placed, I wrote this blog, The secret of Engg Campus Placements no one speaks about.
I recommend you read this at least once. Fast forward around 2.5 years, and having taken interviews at IIT Madras recently, I have a few points that could help you nail those college placements for software engineer roles.
DSA!!
DSA!!
DSA!!
Scream this out loud when you wake up, then proceed to do this for at least an hour. This is your saviour and the most potent tool in your arsenal.
Whenever software companies come for interviews with college students, they don’t expect you to know anything. They wish you to have done nothing except for having sound reasoning and analytical skills. That’s it.
Now the question comes how they can check your reasoning and analytical skills? The most obvious and straightforward answer is DSA.
The companies will throw DSA questions at you and expect you to solve them well. If you nail 3/3 or 5/5 questions, there is a very high possibility they’ll take you.
This information is usually deprived of college students. We do a bunch of things, such as AI/ML, Dev projects, Blockchain, Computer Network projects etc. But these are all just plus points.
If you and another candidate are of the same rank in DSA rounds, then only you’ll be judged based on your extra knowledge. If you are already lacking in DSA, you’re out.
So if your college placements are coming, it's a good time to start the grind for the DSA question. As a rule of thumb, I would solve 200–500 questions on Leetcode/GFG.
If you read the article mentioned above, I have said that the best thing you can do is be good at competitive coding. This will give you a significant edge over other candidates. To clear any confusion, Competitive coding and DSA are not the same.
DSA is just the problem-solving ability using data structures. In contrast, competitive coding is a mind sport where you have to solve many questions using data structures under certain restrictions such as time or memory.
The best resources for this would be Codeforces or CodeChef. They have free weekly contests.
So get in there and start coding.
Cheers :)
