[Music]
so hello everyone today in this video
i'll be sharing my four years of
placement journey. Cause whenever I tell that I got my
first internship in my first year my
dream internship in my dream position
or the stream that is the android
development in my second year and i got
placed right after my third year in one
of the fortune 500 company. So it sounds quite simple.
People think in US if you just
calculate the ratio of jobs for every
international student is highest in the
US because of startup culture and so
many reasons so that's why you think
it's easy to find a job in the US but
i'll be giving you the reality how i got
placed and all the steps i took to get
placed. So let's get started. So most
of the students start preparing for
placements in their second year or third
year but I got very lucky because I started preparing
for placement unconsciously or
consciously even before
going to college.
I was very lucky that one day my classmates forced me, I was on my way to the physical education class which was in non-medical 11th grade.
My friends, my classmates forced me to take the computer science class
or the Informatic Practices. We used to call it IP
They told me I should at least attend the CS class and I attended that class and I was like
wow it is so interesting we were
learning java basics and little bit
SQL database so that was so much fun
it was much easier than cramming physical
education and that's how
I got into java and I never actually thought
that i'm actually preparing for
placements i was doing java for fun and
that's how I got into java and android development.
So for learning android and java I needed to have a laptop that was gifted to me by my uncle
And an android smartphone so that I could test and I got that from my grandmother by my stubbornness.
And finally I was all set to learn. By doing so in 11th I got 90 out of 100 in Computer Science.
And in 12th I got 98 out of 100. I had no passion for marks but I still got them.
but because android and java was so much
fun, I got to know
i really want to pursue computer science
in my college. So I started preparing and I knew I want to study in the US.
Because I knew if I can study in the US
I can easily pursue computer science. I don't have to know my rank.
my rank will not decide my major. I can
decide my major. So because of this, it was
final. The only problem was that I was always nervous for interviews.
I had never thought of placements, but for visa interview, talking to my universities representative.
I was afraid of these things. Searching for universities was very hard
But you guys are very lucky. Because you have
access to platforms like IDP which is
leader in global international student
services and they have partners in
universities of countries like australia
US, UK, Ireland et cetera and the best thing is
they have counseling services which is
absolutely free so basically they will
be with you for every step in study
abroad and honestly the best thing I like about IDP
is that
they give you transparent information
they say
that these are the schools where you can
get 100% scholarship. These are the
schools where they have no application
fee. So you can choose, you can
basically research as well with them and
be transparent and choose your dream
school easily. And IDP also organizes
biggest educational virtual affairs where
you can interact to representative from
your dream school no matter which country
By sitting at your home you can talk to
that representative in a one-on-one
session and you can clarify all your doubts.
And IDP is there for you for
every single step for example letters of
recommendation, in statement of purpose
you have to brainstorm and also for visa
process till the point you submit the
button for your application or else for visa
and even beyond if you need help with
internships and jobs. IDP
will be there for a 360 support and they
will be there to guide you so don't miss
this opportunity to study abroad and IDP
will be there for you and the link will
be in the description below.
Now let's talk about college. Whenever you're seeing any goal
always think WHY and HOW. WHY have you set this goal and how you're going to achieve it
So I also had this idea. From the first year of college
I thought that I had listened somewhere that it is possible to get an internship in first year.
It was a rare case but
I want to do it and let's see how. And why I want to do it is because I want
to pay my tuition fee so that I can make my
undergraduate degree a bit more affordable.
So from first day I
was always talking to so many students
you see me talking to so many people in
my vlog. In vlogs, I talk to a lot of people and strangers
but in reality also i do it just to
learn. I used to talk to seven to eight
students every day. I used to work in
math tutoring center, dining hall. Wherever I took a job
I used to interact with students and that's how I knew every
students placement story.
I kind of knew it. So that's why when i
met Naman, he told me as well that...
He came one semester before
me. He told me that I am looking for an
internship as well but the first goal
should be to have a GPA. So my goal in the first
semester was to get the GPA
because when I apply for internships I
can actually write in my resume this is
my GPA. So first semester goal only to
get high grades and to actually get to
know and to get familiarized with the
college. Goal one completed. I got GPA 3.9
The second semester started and
in my second semester, I applied
but I'm not ready yet. In my resume
there's nothing. So in my resume, I wanted
to add something. I just had one project
which I had done in my 11th & 12th in my computer
science class in non-medical. So I wanted
to add more stuff in my resume and for that
I started going to hackathons. Now I was able to go to
hackathons because of
the friend circle because I was talking
to seven to eight students a day. I knew
this hackathon is happening at this time
at this location. I checked mlh.io
website. I was familiar with so many
websites and sources for hackathons that
I kept attending every month every other
weekend whenever they used to happen I
was registered for every possible
hackathon and now after three months of
second semester. The semester was about to end, I
had actually three projects in my resume
and I was ready to apply for internships.
Three projects and 3.9 GPA applied. Now
that was March of 2017 I remember and
the semester ends in May. I had only two months to find an internship
internship and I was like I will not
find an internship I think and and I was
like it's basically not possible. Like I
have limited time so i was exploring
into internship for software engineering
and research positions as a backup.
You should always have a plan B
and I had that. So basically i looked
into research position for Georgia State,
Georgia Tech. I had other universities in
Georgia. All the nearby university because I
didn't want to move out of atlanta
because you know you have to find new
housing somewhere and I didn't want to
take the pain. So that's why i started
looking for
a research position in Georgia but
internships could be outside because they give you
a housing stipend.
So i got one research position in my own
school. As a back up I got some immunity that
yeah I can make two thousand to
four thousand dollars in my summer if i
do research in my own school in my first
year. But four thousand dollars versus
ten thousand dollars internship. There is a lot of
difference. So i kept looking for
internships and I didn't look for internships for the money.
The second reason why I was looking
for internship was to gain experience
because if I start preparing for
placements today
then one year later two years later it
will not be a preparation for placement. It will
not be called preparation it will be
called revision. So you know you should start as soon as possible.
That was my idea. Like at home whenever we studied what will be taught tomorrow
we will already know what is being taught.
My grandmother always used to teach me this in my childhood.
The same concept is here also. You basically you know
preparing in advance so the next time
you learn it it's revision. So that's why
I was trying hard to prepare myself. Now
my resume was ready. I kept applying for
software engineering internship in Google,
in Microsoft, all these FAANG
companies do accept first year students
who are in college pair and
problem is that their LeetCode
questions are really really difficult.
The programming questions they ask,
they're so challenging and I wasn't
ready for it. I just knew basic data
structures till hash map but not beyond
that. I hadn't studied graphs.
So that's why i wasn't ready I was like
getting rejected I couldn't crack any of
those interviews. So that's why I found a
great solution to get my first
internship that was
getting non software engineering related
internships. Because I had only two months.
I was like I'm going to grab any kind of
opportunity that I'll get.
If it was with systems engineering
or if it was with database or anything else.
I will grab it so I applied for every
kind of position in every company and
got referrals as well through my
friend circle. Friend circle does play an
important role in your career so throught that
I got referrals and kept
applying and that's how I got my first
internship. Panasonic automotive as a
systems engineer not as a software
engineer. And the interview for that was basically
behavior interview round where they ask
you - tell me about the scenario when you
made this project. So it was in the
coding interview round that's how I
could crack it and I was ready for it.
After cracking this, as I had said in my last video
I made ten thousand dollars everything
smooth. Now this ends first year. Let's
start with second year.
[Music]
Now, before starting the second year, I want to tell you
that even though I did internship in systems enginnering.
I wasn't going to stop here.
I am not going to bow down [PUSHPA REFERENCE LOL]
So because of this, during my first internship I remembered an
Amazon leadership principle. If you haven't read all the 14 Amazon leadership principles. That is one
of them is go above and beyond. So
basically I thought I'm a systems engineer.
I'm working on excel sheets and
database here in there why not I take an
android project about which I know the basics.
Why not I do a project and do it on the
side. Cause no company
stop you.
if you want to take more work, take more
responsibilities or to go above and
beyond. And now in this case I took two
projects one android on the side one
systems engineer and that's how - I didn't
write that I was "systems engineering intern" on my resume
on my resume I
wrote "systems
and software engineering intern". You can
tweak it the way you you want to because
you're not lying at the end of the day. I
had both the projects and that was my
baseline for my career. So this ends, this
actually ends the first year. Now in second
year, cause my performance was high. I
was performing well so that's how I
could do a part-time internship as well
which is allowed for international
students. Now with part-time internship
it might sound it was comfortable, I was
making thousand dollar plus every month.
It was going very smoothly.
I was able to manage my classes but it
was still very hard because I was taking
six classes. I also had this goal that in
three years I want to complete my
undergraduate degree so that's why it
wasn't as easy you might think and I had
to travel. Because you know as an intern
you're not allowed to work from home all
the time. You have to go to company to
work. Work from home culture only started in COVID.
Those who started working in
COVID, they don't know the reality of
going to the office, coming back. To go via train.
Only few people know that. So that's why
it was not as easy to manage as you
might think. Basically, second year was quite
tough. Managing office work and
school work was very difficulty and I wanted
to prepare for better internship next
semester. I wanted that since I have experience
and projects
through that experience, I can apply for
better internships. Basically, if you have
related experience only then you
get calls. You know previously I didn't get calls.
Now is ready to get calls but I
didn't even have time to apply or to
prepare for internships. That's why I
took another challenge that I am going
to give my best. So every weekend I was
like you know getting four to five hours
of sleep, I was doing LeetCode and how I
was doing LeetCode? I had a friend
circle. Through the friend's circle I was actually doing mock interviews.
For example, when you're in high school the teacher
sometimes tell you that you try to understand from your benchmate.
Explain to each other and understand.
So when you exchange knowledge between your friends that is
actually helping you more.
because you are able to understand
things better. That's the reality of mock
interviews with friends as well. When you
take interview and give interview you're
actually exchanging much more knowledge.
Cause you're explaining your chosen question
to a student and you're basically teaching and to teach
is to learn twice and you're learning
from the other student as well. That was
how I was able to prepare for software
engineering rounds because I was really
nervous. How will I do LeetCode, how will I
be able to solve coding challenge in
30 minutes or maybe one hour. I was
really scared but because of these mock
interviews with my friends. You can go to...
just go to interview.leetcode.com
you can just find a way
to take a mock interview of any friend. So
that's how I got a little bit prepared
to get started with software engineering
internships and that's how I applied to
again NVIDEA, Microsoft all the companies
I could think of. NVIDEA rejected me
first because they asked me
really hard question related to bits.
Microsoft, Facebook they had really
recursive approaches to questions they
were really hard but
some other fortune 500 companies did
give me an offer where the coding
challenge wasn't that difficult and
that's how I landed my second internship
but first internship as an android
developer, officially android developer
which I really really enjoyed.
Now here starts third year. Now in third
year, in second year everything
went well. Now this time I did not try to
do part time as you remember part time
was hard to manage. Now this time I
thought let's start a youtube channel
I thought that my career is at a good
point, I should start a youtube channel
and I think I did start in second
year as well but I couldn't do that because
of internship. So in actually in third
year I started this youtube channel and
also a reaction channel where I got to
fix my communication skills and I kept
interview prep and placement prep a little on the side.
And I focus more on youtube career and
even after third year in fourth year maybe I
think I did internship at the same place
because I was a little bit contented
When you do a lot of hard work,
when you're sacrificing sleep I think
when you have another goal -
youtube as a long term is a great
option. I wanted to try it out and I
think it did help me a lot so that's how
the youtube channel started. In third year
I did the same internship and in fourth year
I actually got full-time offer from
the same company.
If I have to switch today I really have to revise actually
not prepare because I have prepared in
the past, I have to revise my algorithm
skills, revise my data structures & algorithms
and then prepare. So you see the
difference when you start early.
Now I will also tell you that I
personally don't like the interview
system.
Even though you could be a high
performer, even though you might know how
to make android and ios app within few
minutes but you might not know how to do
BFS, DFS. So that's the reality. Coding
interview is not actually true to the
skill that they're testing you upon. They
might be testing you for for your web
development skills through LeetCode
questions which is not justifiable
[Music]
Now let's talk about the four reasons that
can help you get placed as well. I think
the number one reason I got
placed is I took every single
opportunity I was given. Whether it be working in the dining hall or
be a tutor to teach math, computer science. Now for
example I remember one of my friend he
was looking for internship he came as a
master's student and he wasn't able to find an internship in the US.
So what he did was even
though he had work experience in India,
that was somehow not related to data
science because of which he couldn't get an internship.
So what he did was he
actually applied for a qualcomm
internship in India because he wasn't
getting much calls or attention in the
US. He got, he applied in India got a
position from US in India.
So he went to India and he spent three months in qualcomm
India. He didn't get enough money.
He got 50,000 to 60,000
rupees for three months but perks
were amazing. Free uber rights to office,
hotel, everything was free and I still remember he was telling me
50,000 for three months is much less than
what he used to get whilst working in the dining hall.
As i told you I met so many
friends at dining hall. He used to tell
me that whilst working in the dining hall
I used to make 800
to 900 dollars.
And working in India is getting me
50,000 rupees through internship.
There's a huge difference but still he
took that position because of which when placement came around
he got around almost
like 150,000 dollars
job offer after his master's. So you know
whichever opportunity you get do grab it. It
definitely helps in the future. Now
number two important lesson always give
mock interview rounds. Let me tell you that today
there are so many websites where you can actually schedule
a mock interview and basically in mock
interview if you schedule with a
stranger you are taking as well as
giving. Now when you are taking an
interview you are teaching, you're
basically interacting with the student.
Because when you give coding interviews
you know it's not about only solving the
questions and sleeping whilst someone else is doing it.
No it's
actually about talking through every
step. Whenever I give an interview I
talk.
Whatever is in my thought I say
it loud so that interviewer can actually
tell that i'm thinking about multiple
ways to solve the problem. I think about
DFS is a possibility. Should i use FOR loop or WHILE loop.
Whatever I think I talked through the
interviewer and interviewer sometimes
corrects me, sometimes tell me why not
this why not that. So the whole
conversation through the mock interview
makes you think that you're always in an
actual interview that will help you
prepare. So ask any friend go
to any website and do give mock
interviews. Now number three prepare
early because if today you're calling
it preparation tomorrow it will be
called revision. So that is very
important. Now number four
read 14 Amazon leadership principles.
Because whenever you give any behaviour interview irrespective of your stream
whenever you talk to an interviewer
about general stuff - tell me about
yourself. But if you have those
14 leadership principles in mind you can
use one or two in some answers. You can
give the best example of a scenario
when I was the best leader, this scenario
was when there was a conflict in a team
and how I solved it. So you should have
those things ready and you will be ready
for a behavior interview round. So that
will be it for today's video and please
don't forget to check out IDP
educational fairs and the link will be
in the description below. Thank you so
much for watching.
[Music]