14 - Starting Leetcode

Leetcode is something that is familiar to most CS majors who are aiming to work at big companies. That includes me. Leetcode, for those of you who haven't heard of it, is a site with coding problems that often use data structures and algorithms knowledge with different difficulty levels. These problems are used as interview questions for top tech companies.

A group of my friends came together to create a study group over this summer to practice these problems and become better prepared for technical interviews. I'm excited to start this journey because sometimes I feel like I am lacking in my coding knowledge and this will be a great way to practice! This week we just finished our first week of studying and it made me realize that this is something I will need to put some effort into. Typically, applicants are given about 45 minutes to solve a problem and I simulated that by giving myself a timer. This first week, I was only able to solve 1 completely that had an acceptable Big O notation for time and space complexity. The other questions I was able to complete partially with some test cases, or not at all.

One consideration I have to make is the language I am solving the problem with. I have had the most recent experience with C++ now, making it the easiest language to code in, but I look at some problems and realize I should probably be using Python because that implementation is going to be 20 times easier. It made me realize that I need to brush up on the languages I haven't used in a while. One app I used to use is SoloLearn, and I really should go back to that!

I'll also be starting a web development project where I try to redesign the website for the UC chapter of ACM-W. I am planning this to be my summer project since the website is in need of refreshing and it'll be a good way to gain some new skills!

Also, my coop rotation starts tomorrow, where I will get to work on machine automation development, so I am very excited for this semester of learning!