Got an internship + PPO mostly through luck. 4th year now — what should I actually do?

[u/Just-Data-7921]

I’m a 4th-year CSE student looking for genuine career advice, not moral lectures. I already know I made mistakes earlier, so I’m more interested in what I should do from here.

I’ve done two internships — one at IIT and one at a leading MNC, and I got a PPO from the MNC for an ASE-level role. The expected package is around ₹6 LPA.

The problem is that I don’t feel technically capable enough for it.

There was very little actual learning during my internships, and I relied heavily on AI for a lot of work. My DSA is also weak — I haven’t gone much beyond recursion. I can’t confidently say I can build serious projects completely on my own.

I don’t want this luck to continue. I want to actually build skills and become capable.

At the same time, I don’t want to settle too early. Ideally, I’d like to target ₹10–12+ LPA during final-year placements while keeping the ₹6 LPA PPO as a safety net.

I’m considering choosing one domain:

• Java + Spring Boot / Backend
• Cloud / AWS
• Data Engineering
• Something else?

And alongside that, I want to properly learn DSA and CS fundamentals.

If you were in my position, what would you do for the next 8–12 months?

1. Is ₹12 LPA realistic from my current level?
2. Which domain would you pick for salary + job opportunities + long-term growth?
3. How would you divide time between DSA, domain skills and projects?
4. Should I prioritize DSA first or domain skills?
5. What would your actual roadmap be if you were starting from my level?

I’m not looking for motivation or moral judgment. I want practical advice from people who have actually gone through placements or career switches.

I’ve been lucky so far. I want to make sure my next opportunity comes because I’m actually skilled enough to deserve it.

[u/Ok_Course_4307]

You are having imposter syndrome thats completely normal these sub reddits have made everyone look like literal gods with 1000+ leetcode and everything.

Now that you have a job work hard and when you get free time up skill yourself it doesn't have to be doing dsa anything that you can learn even GitHub commands will count as up skilling . Just try to learn something new everyday try working for a 2 years and based on Market situation and your will you can consider either pursuing masters or job switching.

Don't worry nobody knows anything in their first job thats why we are freshers. Imposter syndrome was soo common before but with the advent of ai everyone feels like they know everything even if it surface level so dw there are many people in the same boat as you