This blog contains experiences from my summers after 2nd year, internship preparation and interviews, and how my 3rd year went after that at IITK. |
Summers'18After leaving SAE in my fourth sem, I decided to focus more on CSE projects and do coding for my internship interviews. CS220 (Computer Organization) course tickled my interest in 'Systems' field. So I took a project in this field, took two 5-credit courses, and thought of coding practice. But things don't go according to plan, do they? The project was not going successful (read: we were not making any actual progress there). And procrastination prevailed. I thought - "I have 3 months for coding practice, it's more than enough". And so, I left the project midway, and started watching TV series instead. I ended up wasting my whole summers, except for the courses that I took. I barely started coding practice from 'Interviewbit' and it was already mid-July. Resume submission deadline was close, so that was priority. After this, I went home, thinking that I'll start my coding practice after coming. |
Internship Preparation and InterviewsThis section contains my first hand experiences during our internship drive. If you want to know the tips needed, please find them at the end of this section. After coming from Vaishno Devi, I started internship preparation on nearly 1st August. Procrastination led me here. Now I had no escape, I had to prepare for internship tests and interviews. I wrote inspirational quotes in my keep and started practicing questions from geeksforgeeks. I learnt that many of my peers have done a lot of preparation, but I didn't lose my cool, which was important at that time. I knew it is too late, but what other options did I have. Internship tests started on 5th August, with DE Shaw PPT and test. Tests were scheduled each day. GS test on 6th August, Gartner test on 7th August, and so on. Each day I was messing up more. My confidence was low, since I didn't have enough coding practice to marvel any test. I remember in some test, I even forgot some function of 'vector' STL and hence couldn't do the question. My CGPA was 8.7 at that time. Day 1 was 11th August, and slowly 10th August came, with my name in no shortlist. I was hopeless for any shortlist in Day 1. On 10th August, my shortlist came for the next round of Microsoft i.e. Flyers. It is specific to just Microsoft - they have you all sit in a lecture hall, and display the questions on screen. Many students are assigned to each interviewer, you have to write the code on a piece of paper, and then explain it to your interviewer. It's basically taking interview on a mass scale. It was 10 pm, and I had no shortlist for any Day-1 interview. At around 2 am, shortlist for Microsoft came, and my name was on it. I was in the OAT at the time and slept at around 3 am.
Day-1
12th August
13th August
14th August
15th August
16th August
17th August
18th August
Final day
Epilogue:
Takeways from the experience |
Rest of 5th semFollowing the internship season were mostly parties and attempts to get other wingies an internship. Due to the internship preparation, I totally neglected the academics, like everyone else. Upto 20th August, I left every course unattended. So I began to focus on those also, since 5th semester is considered to be one of the most hectic sem. With courses like Operating Systems, Algorithms-II, Theory of Computation and Introduction to Machine Learning, my semester was heavy as hell already. Assignments and preojects started, apart from the tiny-minnie quizzes. I still remember one assignment of Algo-II, it took me 2 days to write a single code of 400-500 lines. The most difficult part was debugging, which took another day. Assignments of OS were the toughest though. There were four of them, and last two were huge. It took nearly 5 days to complete those OS assignments. Machine Learning - who hasn't heard this term. I was also excited for this course, since it was gonna help me in my internship too. But the course didn't interest me, as there were a lot of things in a short period. And probablistic ML - gosh, I hate it. There are too many formulae. Anyhow I passed the sem with a SPI of 8.5 (lower than few of the previous semesters). But this was the semester when 50% of CSE students messed up in their SPI. |
6th semThis semester started like any other, I targetted academics. We were counting days till our internships started in Bangalore, making plans for roadtrips, and how we will enjoy there. But somehow, I was more serious in this semester. I paid even more attention to Academics. I joined gym again (did gym in my 4th sem also). My target was a muscular body, and so I started takign proper nutritious diet with proteins. I took CS638 (Formal Methods in Robotics) due to my interest in Robotics. Semester continued. I developed interest in Robotics more. I don't remember much about this semester as I am writing in the "Corona Break", it's more than a year ago. Anyways, the semester continued, and SPI came. I scored 'Dasss' (IITK lingo of 10 pointer). I was happy coz it's my first dassa of college. Semester ended, and I went for my intern in Bangalore. Find my internship experience here. To return my blog main page, click here. |