Here are a few things I wish someone had told me before placements began — not the usual motivational nonsense, but the practical stuff that actually matters.

1. Maintain a High GPA — It Does Matterh2

It’s not everything, but it’s definitely not useless either.

Please ignore anyone who casually says: “Bro GPA doesn’t matter, skill matters.”

Skill matters after you get the interview. To even reach that stage, for most on-campus drives, a decent GPA is a screening filter.

I’ve seen talented people not even get the chance to appear for the interview because:

• The OA shortlist had a GPA cutoff
• The company internally screened by GPA before interviewing
• Or simply because two candidates with similar skill → the one with better stats wins

If you’re a fresher, GPA is your first impression on paper.

It doesn’t define you long-term, but it absolutely affects your short-term opportunities.

2. Don’t Grind 700+ LeetCode Questionsh2

If you have time, sure — go ahead. But for most people, 200 well-selected problems is more than enough.

The key is breadth > depth.

Cover all categories:

• Arrays, strings
• Binary search
• Sorting
• Linked lists
• Stacks, queues
• Trees, BST
• Graphs
• Dynamic programming
• Sliding window, hashing, recursion patterns

Don’t solve 200 array questions and skip DP or graphs. A curated approach works much better like Striver’s 450 Sheet.

If you’re short on time:

• CodeHelp (Babbar) 150 Video Series

Both are excellent structured paths.

3. Focus on Core Subjectsh2

Most companies (outside pure DSA roles) love to ask:

• DBMS + SQL
• Operating Systems (OS)
• Computer Networks (CN)

CN especially matters if you’re targeting networking/system-level companies.

DBMS + SQL questions show up in almost every OA and interview.

OS fundamentals are non-negotiable.

4. Learn System Design (HLD + LLD)h2

One of my biggest mistakes early on was ignoring this.

Even for fresher roles, knowing:

• How systems scale
• How APIs are structured
• How databases interact
• Why queues, caching, hashing, sharding matter
• And how to reason about load

…makes a massive difference.

You don’t need FAANG-level design expertise. But you do need to understand the basics of HLD and LLD.

5. Build a Couple of Good Projectsh2

Not 10 half-baked ones. Just 1–2 solid ones that you:

• Can explain well
• Actually understand
• Can defend under questioning
• And can connect to real-world use cases

Especially if you lack internship experience, projects can carry you.

6. Sleep. Seriously.h2

Interview performance drops heavily if you haven’t slept.

Some of my biggest mistakes happened when I was sleep-deprived. Good rest is part of preparation.