I’m not a grad, but current resident. Here are things I think would be good to do before starting:
1. Learn how to read documentation. Granted some docs suck (looking at you node), but for the most part they hold all the answers. The better you are at reading documentation the e
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hi, disclosure, I’m the co-founder of Formation.dev, which isn’t a bootcamp but a career accelerator focused on practice and feedback and not on lecturing/teaching.
I believe data structures and algos are extremely important but not just to practice them because they are interview questions. A lot of Codesmith alumni I work with are able to solve problems but lacking a bit in the underlying fundamental concepts.
If you believe DSA are important to you for interviews, learning CS fundamentals for months (not a week) and applying them to DSA is the way to go, rather than whack a mole trying to just solve problems for the sake of solving interview problems.
u/mmz55 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Who is suggesting that you learn ‘cs fundamentals’ (whatever that means) in a week. If you can read AND understand algo solutions you have a good enough grasp on ‘cs fundamentals’
I don’t know what you thought this post does other than discourage people and gatekeep. People sho
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Codesmiths curriculum spends about a week or two on CS fundamentals and then has practice for the rest of the time while doing intense project work.
I also agree it’s not a single bar for what is “cs fundamentals” and that is not meant to gatekeep. Everyone learns and progresses differently.
My point restated is that interviews don’t ask these questions to gatekeep but they are testing understanding of the broad abstractions that all coding is based on. The best way to do well in these interviews is to understand those fundamental abstractions and patterns incredibly well instead of understanding minimally and practicing intensely. Don’t get me wrong, part of understanding intensely IS practice. But it’s practice for the sake of understanding, not practice for the sake of trying to pass an interview if that makes sense.
An example is someone might solve a LC medium problem and technically “pass” on LC, thinking that they know this problem. But the underlying code itself would indicate otherwise in a real interview, because the person is trying to get the question right over learning the fundamental concepts.
u/mmz55 I edited and added more examples here. There are definitely different points of view here. I interviewed hundreds of people at Facebook, my team has hundreds of years of FAANG experience in all capacities of interviewing. This is a FAANG lens and might not apply to everyone.
u/slickvic33 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I did a fair amt of work in Odin proj and it helped me a ton so far (I'm a current resident). Most people entering had little to minimal experience ever making a website or using an ide. Having some experience made it much more palatable. I got up to finishing the fundamentals.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hey, you mentioned "most people entering had little to minimal experience ever making a website or using an ide"
I was under the impression that "a third" of Codesmith students have past experience, a CS degree, or relevant tangential experience, as Philip Troutman said in a video on Course Report's YouTube channel.
Would you agree with the rough "a third"? If I had work experience and was working alongside people who had never used an IDE, that doesn't seem like the right fit.
u/InTheDarkDancing wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
These questions are a bit of a trap because if you take everyone's advice you wouldn't need to attend Codesmith. If you've already gotten into Codesmith then I wouldn't obsess over doing a bootcamp before the bootcamp. For me, I think the most beneficial thing that would've stuck
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I was confused when I learned Redux a couple of years ago, and that was 8 years after being the highest output engineer at Facebook :P so I would agree to spend zero time on it haha
u/VaN7uard wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Would you say discrete mathematics is a good course to help you understand DSA better? Have been considering taking this class and would be interested in your opinion
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I think a DSA course is probably ideal as a one off course. If you are doing s full CS degree then yes, it helps. My discrete math courses were super theoretical and didn't help me that much because half the time was learning the symbols and terminology the theories were communicated in. Like Sets and summations have some pretty unique symbology, but you do gain a respect for rigorously looking at problems down to every single aspect.