An Open Letter To Pre-final Year Students

I am a final year student when I am writing this blog and its 25th of march 2021. I have passed 3rd year around 8 months back and hence the memories of the pleasures as well as adversities faced by student during their pre final year are still alive. I know u are bound in the shackles of placement preparation, choose project or competitive coding, enjoy the beauty of youth, college life, friends or capture ourself with a team of nerd students to discuss syllabus and placement stuffs. Everyone has faced the same and, in this confusion, u will often try finding a guidance from your seniors who according to you have excelled in everything. But look I will tell you the truth herein, most people share their idea of truth and reality. They are biased and shaped by their experiences. Never ever go and follow exactly other’s opinion if your conscience lies apart. The true secret is about failing, falling learning and then getting up.

Disclaimer:focussed on CSE prefinal year students.

There are various academic stresses for a pre final year student, the stress of not getting internships, the stress of blank resume, no projects, no extra ordinary skill to flaunt about, less cgpa, and not so good level of coding. These stresses will be ranging from one to many varying from individual to individual. But u know, the way u will manage your stress will set an example for you and prepare you for future tough life. Now the time has come to come out of your comfort zone into magnificent planning which will become a golden memory of your life I will talk about each and every aspect. There will be times when u will be depressed either comparing on LinkedIn or by your own level in competitive coding or in class but u know what, some depressions are good for health unless it doesn’t becomes clinical. always try to share your anxiety with friends or people around and if u don’t have anyone share to a random person, the key secret of curing this will be working hard, studying hard and seeing the improvement in you. It’s okay to not to be okay sometimes, trust me you will be a winner after all these.

So, the first stress is internship. Do not do any internship just for the sake of internship because it will not help you in the long run. choose your internship and let not internship choose you. I have seen people running behind simple internships which are not significant just for the credits required but trust me these will not add any icing to your resume, instead go for personal project, institute project under any professor or learn something new. It will also work if u spend the whole of time in coding or your syllabus. Basically, I am using coding repeatedly because I am a cse student so our placement prep meant just coding. This may look very impractical to you as u are 3rd year student and many of your classmates are doing internship here and there. If you are doing internship in a good place where u are learning a lot …hats off to your achievement …keep going and keep growing because knowledge is power. But if you are doing any random internship just for certificates or addition to resume then u are wasting your time and time is money and money is precious. Work very very diligently as I have seen many recruiters making fool of students just in name of internships. My dear junior u are still a winner if you do not have any internship as u have enough time to prepare for your placements in 2 months of semester break and u can bag a very good placement. if you have a good internship, enjoy it learn from it and always prepare for ahead. A traveller asked a milestone “how do you celebrate your achievements?” the milestone replied “By preparing for the road ahead “. the context of my whole sentence is that those who find themselves happy as they have a good internship offer celebrate your achievement but do not linger too long in that space, because there is a lot of work to do.

The 2nd stress is most prevalent the stress of blank resume. This is the most valid pressure but seriously I have seen some of my classmates with blank resumes getting placed in dream companies. All the juniors asks me whether cgpa is important or not ,the only answer is cgpa is not important but u have to be good in other things which will balance more than your cgpa like coding stuffs or development .If u have not so good cgpa u should have a descent coding skill or may be very good coding skill .If your coding is not so good u can compensate it with very good hold of syllabus and cgpa .cgpa and coding ability both of them not so good won’t work if you are really focussing for good companies .The second aspect of this is projects .projects must be done with the confidence of you being able to explain its tech stack and its details in technical interview on being asked .Either start a project from scratch or copy a project ,the previous one will boost your skill while the latter one will save your time ,do not lie between them (as if copying code from what is explained on YouTube ).The third aspect is participation in hackathons .If u have learnt any development be it web or app I suggest you that u should definitely participate in hackathons as they are the best way to be industry expert in development . do not worry if you haven’t tried hands on development but do not try to escape from coding if you are a CSE student ,instead start competitive coding ,or coding in DSA .

Now comes the biggest question : competitive coding .Many of the pre final year students worry that they are not so good in cc (competitive coding) and they haven’t started yet ,other students are doing it since first year .always remember no matter how late you start u can always hold a tough fight if you maintain the consistency ,patience and perseverance .always keep in mind the famous dialogue from kota factory “TU LATE HAI PR TU PICHE NAHI HAI “ .U will cover the space and all differences .The next question I often had when I was in 3rd year was what should I do competitive coding or data structures and algorithm . Juniors if u are just preparing for placements and u are already in your 6th semester,do data structures and algorithm coding questions .cc is just the icing of cake but the actual cake is DSA .Do not jump into code forces ,code chef for weeks and hours if your aim is to just get placement .If u want to be a coder ,crack competitions and participate in ACM-ICPC then practice competitive coding well. Competitive coding is must if you are aiming google, Facebook and apple. Other big companies mostly ask coding questions from DSA .U can definitely improve your problem solving skills if you practice competitive coding but u always need time.3rd year is crucial in terms of management of time ,have some goal and focus purely into it.I know there are many students who are preparing for GATE OR CAT ,I will have a personal advice on this, do wait until the time u are placed because faster is your placement lesser is the competition .During the initial days of placement students are not well prepared so taking placement is quite easier but as the days pass all the students start giving their best and competition becomes tougher .So I recommend you all to focus on your primary objective ,if primary objective is getting PSU or doing MTech then do study for GATE. Listing priorities in life is very important dear at this stage.

I think I have covered almost all the problems and dilemmas one comes across in 3rd year.one important suggestion is admist these stress keep the childlike behaviour in you alive, enjoy the moments and have friends ,be the reason someone believe in good people, do not worry about the tier of college you are in it doesn’t matters in any way except for one reason that people of tier1 colleges like IIT are more privileged to have a lot of companies in their campus but it doesn’t matters if your preparation is up to the mark u can have more no of offers off campus. (Adding resume to GHCI database is the best way to get off campus placements followed by linkedin ).If u are already in tier1 college, make good use of time and privilege you will be getting. Have a strong grasp of DSA, be focussed and live life. it’s your golden year not a drop year, your every decision will have a massive role in your upcoming placements .do not stress much about it but a little bit of stress about studies is good for health I suppose. No matter how many wrong decisions u make, u will always feel proud of yourself at the end of the day. Just put up a hard battle.

~ALL THE BEST JUNIORS

~vaishnavi jha

Other questions are also welcomed!!