A subtle guide to get that college internship - GeeksforGeeks

25 Oct, 2018
Wisdoms for CS/IT/ECE/EE guys of 1st, 2nd or 3rd year.
You might wonder what does an amateur has to say for a topic that is mostly taken up by much experienced counsellors and teachers.Well, that may be true but I believe, the best solution to any problem is available with only one who has invested good time solving it and since I did, I promise you, you won’t be disappointed 
Please note that I focus on companies that provide On Campus interviews for internships, in Indian colleges. Also, as these are just experience based ideas, you are free to take any other path that you find better, but be generous enough to write them down in comments.
You must have heard this famous quote of Thomas Alva Edison–
Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration
Taking very broad references from the quote above, I will be discussing our problem in parts. Firstly the perspiration part and then the inspiration part because you know, 99% matters 
The perspiration
Let me get it straight to you. You need to work hard, very hard. Right from the first year in your college. I believe, since you have taken CS/IT/ECE/EE as one of your engineering branches, you already know that Coding is the key.
But what does it really mean??
Coding as what this is referred to is the first thing an CS/IT guy gets curious about. Indeed he must be. But let me tell you the real essence in those words. Coding is not the key, the key here is Problem Solving.
It is problem solving, a setting of your mind that helps you to get easy answers to any problem that you face in your day to day life, within time.You might not notice, but the way you carry out your task mostly determines that whether you will be able to complete it or not.
Problem Solving will help you when you in myriad ways when you are trying to solve a coding problem. The major benefit of problem solving attitude is that it helps us to develop a series of thoughts, a series of very well structured thoughts, that ultimately leads to the solution. A bridge that connects thought by thought to the destination where you feel that ‘ I have got this problem’ and Yeah! you know it.
Now you might already know the ways to help you with this, but still for the real lucky beginners, let me make this very verbose.
Start by solving puzzles. The same puzzles at which we used to get startled in our childhood. Find some good puzzles like the knight’s tour problem, the travelling salesman problem, the pirate and coins problem. Explore GeeksforGeeks. Please mind that you need to focus on the details of the problem and how beautifully it gets solved. It can happen when you have seen the solution, or in the best case, found one.
Moving on, start your practice on the online judges like hackerrank and hackerearth. These websites have programmes like 30 days of code and the Code monk respectively that will help you get started slowly but steadily, and trust me being steady is IMPORTANT!
Then after some weeks of good practice and a feel Good feeling, take part in the online competitions that are regularly conducted by these websites. These competitions help you to cope up with pressure conditions that might arise in your one to one interview round or even at the aptitude and coding tests, taken mostly as the first round by 99% of the companies.
Also GeeksForGeeks provide you with programmes like Sudo Placement and Sudo Placement 2 that are completely free to join and essentially enables you to get the mindset right for the Coding and Aptitude test. The questions asked in these tests are similar to those that are asked by maximum companies out there.
Remember, Patience and hard work, will pay off.
Now, since we have moved past the competitive coding part, i would like to take up the development part. This mainly comprises of the projects in which you might have contributed and the applications that you might have developed.
I would recommend you to start a practice that i follow i.e Competitive Driven Development. Sounds similar to a development standard, but this is different.
CDD, enables you to write efficient codes. As you will learn more of data structures and develop your competitive skills, the problems that you face when developing an application will get more easily solved and the application will also be innately FAST!
If you wish you might review the thoughts above as for now we move on to the ‘inspiration’ part of the deed. Mind it, The Problem Solving attitude !
The inspiration part
Here too, i won’t be beating around the bush but be to the point. Instead i will take references from my mistakes and that of my friends, so that you are ready with the right outlook of personality, exactly needed.
The moment you get into a university, always look for like minded people. You are not searching for friends, instead you are searching for someone with whom you can talk about your ideas and someone who will be happy to listen to and if needed, correct them. Don’t make yourself alone, ever.The process takes time, but this only starts real ‘productive’ friendships in colleges.
Also, avoid distractions! You might have heard this many time. In fact we all get to listen this all through our childhood, don’t we? But, taking a bit mature perspective on this will make you realise that distractions are all those things in your life that pulls you down. Everything that gives you a feeling of remorse or sadness, not immediately but later, is a distraction. Do you know the cool fact about distractions? We tend to go after them just for the temporary happiness they provide, and this is all they can provide.
I repeat myself, Patience and hardwork, will pay off .
Be easy on yourself and lead a happy life. Think clear and positive. Be prepared for challenges. Don’t ever get overwhelmed by your own thoughts and talk them out to a friend. You must know, an idea can create everything but also can destroy the same.
I also write on medium so if you find my writing interesting, I would love if you follow me there.
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