LeetCode is an incredible tool that can be used to prepare for interviews. There are thousands of problems, each with difficulties ranging from easy to medium to hard. Although the actual problems are not necessarily something you would be solving on the job, LeetCode can teach you invaluable problem-solving skills, which CAN help you whenever you decide to work! I have constantly felt like this was one of my weaknesses as a computer science student, but I'm hoping to improve. I want to reiterate that there are THOUSANDS of problems, so I honestly didn't know where to start...
As I have mentioned previously, following my graduation, I took a month-long break. One of the MAIN reasons for doing this was the reality of grinding the "dreaded LeetCode". Realistically, I was afraid. Not sure why, but I was. I genuinely did not think that I would be able to do it. I would attempt easy problems, but I wouldn't be able to solve them. It was truly disheartening, so much so, that I thought I would never be able to figure it out.
However, following my month-long hiatus, I am back on the grind. I have chosen a syntactically simpler language (Python) and have been working with the NeetCode roadmap. I admire how this roadmap is set up since it systematically chooses the best order to approach each topic. Separating each topic/strategy can help find similarities among each problem, and can help identify how to solve a question if I recognize a strategy. Not to mention, I can essentially skip an intermediate Python course by doing this, as I will be learning all of the data structures/algorithms WITH this roadmap.
I am currently at the beginning (Arrays and Hashing), and I look forward to seeing how the rest of my journey will go! Until next time,
~Ameen