I am a B.E. from NSIT. I have pursued my engineering in Computer Science. I started my preparation for placements from my sixth semester.
In the sixth semester
When I was in my sixth semester I had started preparing for my placements. I was not very clear about how to go about it. I was a hosteller. My roomie(room mate) was in the fourth year and I studied from her books.
I started with the MCQ book of Yashwant Kanetkar. The one on C. Simultaneously I started reading C by Ritchie. This book proved to be really helpful. It helped me not only in clearing my concepts but also in my interviews. Many questions were asked directly from it.
Since we used to go to college in the morning and come back by afternoon we only had evenings to prepare. Then we had to do one or the other college assignment. Though there were days when I used to bunk some classes, most of the time I was left with only evenings and nights to study.
There were many distractions in hostel and so it was difficult to utilize the time very efficiently. But whatever little time I had I gave it to my preparations. Also I had set some targets for myself. I started my preparations in January, completed two MCQ books on C by February mid. So you can imagine how leisurely I was doing it.
Then I started with Ritchie and MCQs on pointers. As I mentioned before also I found Ritchie very helpful especially the chapter on Pointers.
I know some people find Ritchie a difficult book. But my concepts of C were pretty clear and so I did not find it a difficult book. You can use any other book to work on your basics and then do this book if you find it difficult to start with. I had finished the two books by mid April. In the meantime I was also working on building my aptitude. For this I referred to Shakuntla Devi’s puzzles.
We used to build our word power in groups. Things are always easy and interesting when one mixes fun with learning. Also we made it a point to read newspapers daily. I got busy with my end semesters and my practicals in May so I could not devote anytime to my placement preparation.
In the summer vacation
I resumed my preparations in June. We had a two months vacation so I was pretty relaxed in the beginning. This time I began with data structures.
I had asked my seniors what topics I should lay stress on. They told me to concentrate on linked lists and sorting. Anyways I studied linked list, trees, sorting and searching. I was also working on my non technical skills. For this I referred to R.S. Agarwal.
My real problem began after this. When I had around 1 month left and I did not know what to study. The problem was that there was so much material that I did not know what to study and what to leave. I was good at data structures and C. So I thought that I will call them my favorite subjects. But then they were considered to be the toughest subjects by people so I was a bit unsure. I consulted my seniors. They asked me to look for questions on data structures on the net. I found a lot of good questions on linked lists on the net. These questions really helped me in my placements. I also found many good puzzles on the net which were frequently asked in interviews. Solving these questions increased my confidence.
As I told you that I was confused about what other subjects to study. I decided to revise my OS and RDBMS concepts. After this my preparation became company specific. My summer vacations were nearly over and I went to hostel.
Placement Season:
We studied in groups in hostel. The first company to come to our campus was TCS. So we searched for its papers on net. We came to know that the critical reasoning questions in TCS come from Barrons so we bought one edition, which edition I do not remember. We also revised the High Frequency word list from Barrons.
While TCS is a famous company and it was easy to look for its paper, things were not so easy for other companies. There was no one site on which all the material was available.
My preparation was sound and I got through TCS without many hastles.
People out there in NSIT will know how many companies come for recruitment to our campus. There are times when two companies come at the same time and one has to decide which company to sit for.
Most of the times we decide on our gut feeling only. It is at this time that a site like this will really help you in selecting the company you want to sit for.
As I mentioned before also that during the placement season our preparation became more company specific. We used to find the placement papers of companies on net. If a networking based company was coming the next day we revised networking and so on and so forth.
One problem which I feel was there in my approach was that I really did not know which kind of company I was aiming at. I used to prepare for every company which came to our campus. I think if I had been a bit focused on what I want I would have been even better placed.
The placement scenario in itself is such a vast topic that we can write another article on it. I would only write about one more company which I sat for.
The other company which I am talking about is Inductis. The written paper of Inductis was challenging in the sense that it was an aptitude paper and the competition level was high. I had this hesitation that I might not perform well in the paper as I was not preparing for MBA. But it was not so. I got through the written.
As I have already mentioned that I practiced puzzles from net. That helped me in the interviews. They even asked me some technical questions. There was one case study also. All in all a challenging interview and I was happy to crack it.
Ok Guys! This was my story. I hope it will help those who have to prepare for their placements.