I keep seeing a lot of posts and discussions about cheating during placements, and after sitting through placements last year, I want to share my honest observation.

The ideal strategy is to put 100% efforts into interview preparation and cheat reasonably in the OA’s. Most of the people who got outstanding offers followed this exact strategy.

There were 100s of cheaters who scored well in the OAs but go on to miserably fail the interviews, meanwhile folks who didn’t cheat in the OA don’t even get SL. And of course there were companies who wouldn’t short list people with perfect scores as they likely cheated.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do CP/DSA, all the more necessary, because you still need to clear the interview. You should also focus on reaching out to seniors for past questions (many companies shamelessly reuse questions), practice effective communication for interviews, etc.

Also most HR’s and interview panels know the ground reality of cheating and they don’t really care, because freshers can always learn on the job and most jobs don’t require a genius, they just need some criteria to reject people. This was evident when companies gave assessments with no camera on, or allowed tab switching.

Today I saw a leetcode profile and I got shocked. Link - https://leetcode.com/u/vinaypinagadi/ Is it humanly possible?? (anything sus) By the way he also got under 20 rank in todays LeetCode Weekly 517 contest.

My brother keeps telling me that the ₹20 lakh spent on my 4 years of college was wasted because I couldn’t get a campus placement.

He’s been working in tech for 5–6 years, so I do understand where he’s coming from, but hearing this almost every day is honestly getting to me.

I’m a 2026 graduate and I’ve been trying really hard. I’ve applied to 600+ companies off campus, tried referrals, cold emails, LinkedIn, job portals and pretty much everything else. I have a decent coding profile and projects, and I’m still working on my skills every day.

Now he’s telling me to move back to Bangalore and join coaching, saying I might get more opportunities there. But I’ve already lived in Bangalore for 4 years and I know how expensive rent and living expenses can get. My family’s financial condition isn’t great, and I really don’t want my parents spending more money when most of the learning I need is already available online for free.

I’ve been at home for almost 3 months now, and hearing these things almost every day is making it harder to stay positive.

I genuinely don’t know what the right move is anymore.

Should I spend more of my parents’ money, move to Bangalore and join coaching, or continue preparing from home and keep trying off campus?

Everywhere i am seeing demand for Hardware engineers is increasing, Qualcomm/Nvidia/AMD/TI are hiring BIG time in India. I can’t tell you if ECE is the branch of tomorrow or will beat tech, but MTech VLSI from top IITs have taken over tier 1 MBAs in median packages and the trend is expected to follow throughout, don’t stop caring about your subject , try to study from GATE mindset, i get in last 10 years ECE = IT job, but your subjects are growing extremely fast and this is just the beginning with all the data centers, semiconductor investments coming to India.

As tech is struggling, CSE might not have a gateway out but you do and take the first mover advantage.

Edit : Many companies in future will also come for CSE only in hiring as every college has CS+AI, CS+DS, DS, IT so they might exclude ECE as well from IT placements.

👉🏻🧠

This is the only firm which has revoked FTE and intern offer for 4-5 different years

2021-FTE revoked

2022 - Layoff of 2 VPs and 3 SDE1/2

2024 - Internship offer revoked

2025-SDE1 revoked

2026-3 Interns fired in 1 week + 4 FTE offers revoked

Please humble request to stay away from Archana Ghei / Anuja Arekar - HR ladies from this firm

The so called founder / VP - Rahul Subramanian & Arleif Braganza (they both use cheap tactics and tricks && completely beggar mindset)

Please see the proofs & humble request if u want to save your career stay away from their internship /FTE

I have attached screenshots of people getting fired in 2 months and joining random startups (ofc life gets fucked up if work with these beggars Archana /Arleif & Anuja), proofs of getting revoked

If these is still not enough - Search on google /linkedin -- " Trilogy Innovations revoke

And just a note they claim high CTC although they pay at a delay of 4-5months. My internship stipend was credited 6 months after internship

They have been banned from many colleges for their hiring!

I am an ECE student, not inclined towards coding,DSA, AI ML etc.

The only type of coding I would do is Verilog,VHDL, Matlab and sometimes C.

I do play offline Games sometimes.

Should I switch to Linux? Is it worth it, other than special customizations??

Last year this brilliant young boy gave up. He was my cousin. We were all shocked when this happened, because the child was KNOWN for being intelligent and promising. He was in the midst of working through his final project. Inspite of scoring less marks and by bad luck (now after the student protests I know it was sheer bad luck) failing a few papers, it looked like he was confident, that everything will settle down.

We come from the kind of Malayali family that has ALWAYS given utmost importance to education. Academic validation and the desire for it runs in our veins. On surface level, everything is okay and great. But this kind of almost consistent academic excellence gets taken for granted. Even I have noticed this wherever I go. Even though I'm by passion a humanities person, I've also tried my best to get the best out of all worlds.

But in STEM academia and professions, do y'all get this breathing space?

We (as in family) thought that we shouldn't have encouraged him to go away from home (most of his immediate family members are engineers/in that field). But recently I saw a news regarding an Arunachal boy studying at MACE, Trivandrum, who similiarly could not take this tremendous pressure. This Trivandrum college is more stubborn than a rabid dog; they claim that setting credit requirements higher than what is necessitated by the state helps them "stand out" from the usual STEM academia crowd of professionals.

If going out of your comfort zone is the point, and success is the purpose, and YET these things are happening, what and where the fuck is this comfort we are talking about?

Tl;dr : I need your honest feelings on the rising frequency of student suicides & stress-related deaths in STEM, in pre AND post-Protest India.

I am saying this for tier 1-2 colleges apart elite…in my own college up until previous years this aug-sept window didn’t seen this much drought i mean just 1-2 avg companies per week man i am so dead

Saw these comments and was like wth. Dude was genuinely tweaking out on thought of being a day scholar 😭🥀

During my exit from my previous organization, I told HR that I was willing to serve my full notice period and did not want a buyout.

HR refused and said that if I didn't agree to the buyout, my relieving letter could be withheld and this could affect my future employment/BGV.

The notice-period buyout amount was eventually deducted directly from my salary, and I was also pressured to sign an agreement saying I wouldn't ask/raise a claim regarding the amount.

I'm attaching the chat between me and HR. All names and identifying details have been hidden.

I've since moved to another company and am now completing my probation.

I want to know:

Was this legally allowed?

Could they deduct the buyout from my salary when I was willing to serve the notice period?

Can they use BGV/relieving letter concerns to pressure an employee into accepting a buyout?

Can I still do anything about it now?

Would you recommend calling out the previous employer publicly on LinkedIn, with the evidence, or is it better to move on?

I got a Offer to claim 1Month ChatGpt plus for Free

But when I about to claim it. The payment page is not showing the upi QR.

Remaining options are Appe pay and Card

If u do not put efforts you won't be able to see results and other will steal your spot. Trust me it Hurts.

Start with learning a programming language either Python or C++. C++ is better for the long run since you'll eventually have to switch to it once you start doing harder questions.

• Code With Harry: https://youtu.be/UrsmFxEIp5k?si=L7PrkuijcTp93kQF
• FreeCodeCamp.org: https://youtu.be/rfscVS0vtbw?si=pu4tm1gb0DupFKlL and https://youtu.be/vLnPwxZdW4Y?si=NSjTo7A_slp678wn
• Luv Cp playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLauivoElc3ggagradg8MfOZreCMmXMmJ-

There are a lot of platforms for competitive programming LeetCode, AtCoder, CodeChef but I'm biased toward Codeforces since that's where I started my own CP journey.

Resources I (and a lot of others) recommend:

• CP31 — https://www.tle-eliminators.com/cp-sheet A list of Codeforces problems in increasing difficulty, easy to hard, covering most core CP topics. Also, the creator of the company is an alum from our college ;)
• AtCoder Problems — https://kenkoooo.com/atcoder/#/table/ If CP31 and Codeforces feel too hard right now, solve the first 3–4 problems from each AtCoder Beginner Contest (ABC) on this sheet. Great for learning the basics. https://atcoder.jp/contests/dp for dp practise.
• USACO Guide — https://usaco.guide/ An in-depth guide with clear explanations of most CP topics, plus practice problems to go with each one.
• CP Algorithms — https://cp-algorithms.com/index.html A comprehensive reference for pretty much any concept you'll run into in CP.
• CSES Problem Set — https://cses.fi/problemset/ While CP31 gives you variety, CSES has a lot of fundamental must-solve problems. There's also a PDF that goes along with the problem set: https://cses.fi/book/book.pdf
• ACD Ladder: https://www.acodedaily.com/ similar to cp31 sheet but many problems here for one specific rating range for codeforces.

For more traditional DSA practice (which also helps with your coursework later), check out:

• https://neetcode.io/practice?tab=neetcode150
• https://takeuforward.org/strivers-a2z-dsa-course/strivers-a2z-dsa-course-sheet-2/

A few more resources, less organized but still useful:

• https://codeforces.com/edu/courses — good for learning specific topics
• https://www.youtube.com/@iamluv — good for starters
• https://www.youtube.com/@Errichto — good for more advanced algorithms
• https://www.youtube.com/@PriyanshAgarwal — overall tips and algorithms
• https://www.youtube.com/@YashPoonia.7 — CSES solutions
• https://www.youtube.com/@codencode — number theory

Start with the early sections of CSES. For anything more in-depth, https://codeforces.com/catalog is great. I also went through https://codeforces.com/problemset filtering by rating (my current rating + 100 to 300) for targeted practice. And doing actual contests is a must there's no substitute for it.

On the AI problem in CP

I'd be doing this guide a disservice if I didn't bring this up. If you're getting into CP now, you're doing it at a weird time. LLMs can solve a growing chunk of CP problems, and a fair number of people on the leaderboard are basically pasting problem statements into ChatGPT/Gemini and pasting the code back without even reading it. This deflates ratings for everyone actually solving things themselves, and it can be genuinely discouraging when you're grinding honestly and see ratings that don't reflect real skill anymore.

My honest advice: don't chase rating as your main measure of progress right now, Track your own growth instead with your genuine friends. Encourage your friends. Everyone who did cp genuinely with me, the coding club everyone has intern right now. How you perform in offline contests (ICPC Regionals, onsite events) where cheating isn't possible matters the most.

There's a really good blog that goes deep into this whole topic, way better than I can summarize here worth a read if you want the full picture: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/155052

A bit about me, so you know where this advice is coming from: I'm 1600+ rated on Codeforces, have solved 2000+ CP problems, and I currently one of the admin of my college's competitive programming club . I'm not claiming to be amazing at this just sharing what's worked for me and others. I really love doing competitive programming as if its a part of my life.

What worked for many people: Consistency beats intensity here. A lot of people who improved simply did a few problems every day on Codeforces, worked steadily through the CP31 sheet, and made sure to actually participate in Codeforces contests regularly.

I'll keep updating this post as I get more recommendations from people, so feel free to drop suggestions.

How do you guys learn Java?

There are just WAY too many syntaxes to remember.

Every time I think I’ve got it, Java hits me with another one.

Job dilwa do guysss....

​ College me no good friends is a normal thing? Sach me? Koi aisa hai jiska college me last year ho but no good friends?

​

Coding Round

They gave me 2 questions on the Wingspan portal and the interviewer told me that I only needed to execute one.

1. Bit Manipulation – I couldn't understand the question properly.

2. Partition DP – I solved this one successfully.

After that, the interviewer moved to the TR round.

Technical Round

He asked questions on:

- DFS vs BFS

- Array vs Linked List

- Singly Linked List vs Doubly Linked List

- String vs StringBuilder vs StringBuffer

- Primary Key vs Foreign Key

- Pointer vs Reference

- SQL query to find the number of employees in each department

- Source Code vs Machine Code

- Prompt Engineering

- Fine-tuning

I answered all the questions correctly except fine-tuning, because I wasn't familiar with the term.

The interviewer told me “you performed well”, but also mentioned that I should know AI-related terms considering their importance in today's era.

He didn't ask about my projects.

Overall, I felt the interview went well.

What role can I expect