I was pretty sure that I’ll choose CS or EEE whether I get a good college or not. My main interest back then was EEE and I explored it by being a part of an electronics club on campus. But eventually, my focus shifted more towards CS.

I was regularly doing competitive coding and was enjoying it too. Moreover, most of my friends weren’t interested in research and machine learning and I even discovered that it wasn’t my cup of tea.

I never had any coding experience prior to college. CS50 was the first course to get me started in the first semester. Then from the second semester onwards, I started solving problems on Hackerrank and fully utilised my summer. I have been very fortunate to have great seniors and peers who have motivated me at every step.

Google came to campus for the first time in our placement season. They selected eight-nine resumes after which there was an interview at Gurgaon. I had a PPO from Uber and normally it isn’t allowed to sit for other companies but the PU allowed me to sit for Google as it was an exception. I had only 1 week to prepare for the interview where they asked about DSA concepts which were easy for someone who has been doing competitive coding consistently. There were five rounds- four were based on DSA and competitive coding. The last was HR round which they called ‘googliness’.

Uber came to campus in the internship season. In the beginning, there was a coding round out of which the top ten were selected and I was third. After that, there was an interview round where they were looking for problem-solving skills. Generally, it is easy to crack such internships if you are fluent with your concepts.

The most important strategy to win ICPC is to form a good team. We were not top competitive coders individually but we made a good team. We complemented each other as we knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. So, the work was divided accordingly and this strategy proved to be pretty successful.

I was lucky as I applied for these two companies (Google and Uber) which only focused on DSA. There are other companies that see OOP, Networking, etc. so it is better to prepare for them too. But apart from whatever your professor or course teaches you, ultimately you have to prepare yourself.

I represented my school in district cricket. I feel I could’ve continued playing more sports.