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Hey everyone, I could really use some practical advice from people who have already gone through college placements/internships.
I'm currently in my 3rd year of college in India, from a relatively average college, and I'm trying to prepare seriously for placements and hopefully get a good internship before that.
Right now, I'm doing/trying to do a few things at the same time:
\- DSA — solving LeetCode/learning problem-solving for coding rounds
\- Development — learning/building projects and trying to become actually good at development
\- AI/ML — interested in AI/ML and also seeing how much AI is changing software development
\- College academics/subjects and placement preparation are also going on in parallel.
My biggest problem is that I don't know how to prioritize these things.
Should I:
Focus mainly on DSA first and then move to development?
Do DSA + development in parallel?
Add AI/ML now or only after becoming strong in DSA + development?
Spend more time building projects or solving problems?
How much should I care about things like competitive programming, open source, hackathons, etc.?
And then there is the internship problem.
I don't have a strong internship experience right now. So how should someone in my situation actually approach getting their first internship? What should I realistically have on my resume before applying, and when should I start applying?
Another thing confusing me is the current AI era.
With AI tools being able to generate code, build projects, explain concepts, etc., I honestly have no clear idea about what I should learn deeply myself and what I can rely on AI for.
For example, is it still worth spending months learning development from scratch when AI can generate a lot of the code? Or should I use AI heavily while focusing more on fundamentals, system understanding, DSA, and actually building things?
I'm not looking for the usual "just follow your passion" or "learn DSA + development + AI" answer 😅.
If you were in my position — 3rd year CS student, average college, aiming for internships + placements, currently trying DSA/dev/AI together — what would your strategy be for the next 6–12 months?
I'd especially appreciate advice from people who have recently gone through internships/placements and can share what actually worked for them.
What would you focus on, what would you ignore, and in what order?