CROSS LINKS

Compiled by : Akanksha Dangi Anshay Deshwar Harveen Oberoi Nilanjana Goel Veeresh Goswami Videt Jaiswal Designed by : Gaurav Gupta

(2nd year) (3rd year) (3rd year) (3rd year) (4th year) (2nd year) (2nd year)

As the placement season continues, every student has his or her eyes set on the seniors and the companies that they are being selected in. Each student draws inspiration from the seniors who overcome their phases of stress and apprehension to finally land their dream job(s). Amongst all, the one company which is the most anticipated and leaves everyone agape is Facebook. So, it seemed only plausible that we bring to you an exclusive issue of interviews covering students and alumni who overcame all obstacles to realize the Facebook dream.

from the diaries of ALUMNI

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About Mahesh Chandra Sharma

Mr. Mahesh Chandra Sharma is an Electronics and Communication Engineering graduate from the Batch of 2011. He was placed in Directi via on campus placements. He applied to Facebook Off-campus after a year and is now a Software Engineer at Facebook, Ireland.

Mahesh Chandra Sharma

You are placed in Facebook. Please share your experience with us. How was the selection process?
Mahesh Chandra Sharma It was a long process which comprised of 1 online test, 1 telephonic and 3 onsite interview rounds. Questions that were put forth were not very difficult but I was being closely observed as I coded the solutions. I think they were more interested in programming skills than algorithmic skills.

Mahesh Chandra Sharma

In spite of being in Electronics department in NSIT, you became a Software Developer for Directi and now for Facebook. How did this transition of fields come about? What was your inspiration?
Mahesh Chandra Sharma When I took admission I randomly made a choice between ECE and COE. Later on I realized that the choice didnt match my interest. By the end of 2nd year I became aware of my penchant for solving mathematical and algorithmic puzzles opposed to the core electronics stuff. As the placement season approached, I realized software companies were more up my alley (not completely though). I got placed in Directi through on campus placements.

Mahesh Chandra Sharma

Were you involved in societies in NSIT? Did that help you in any way?
Mahesh Chandra Sharma I was not involved in any society in NSIT. So, I cant really say whether it helps or not. I did initiate a programming group on Facebook, though. People use this group as a forum for asking programming and algorithmic problems.

Mahesh Chandra Sharma

How far is your college responsible in making you what you are today. What did your college give you?
Mahesh Chandra Sharma I think a good college really helps in building a good career and giving you a platform. In NSIT, I met some brilliant people who have inspired me a lot.

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by Videt Jaiswal

About Ekansh Preet Singh

Ekansh Preet Singh, who is an Information Technology graduate from the 2012 Batch of NSIT, got placed in Facebook in the year 2011. His name is synonymous with competitions like GSoC. A two time GSoC-er, he is a known stickler at his work. Crosslinks interviewed him and following is an excerpt from the same.

Ekansh Preet Singh

What was your approach while entering into the placement season? Were there certain companies that you were targeting?
Ekansh Preet Singh To be honest, I was pretty nervous entering into the placement season. But then again, everyone is, I believe. Also, I remember our batch had performed pretty poorly during the internship process in 3rd year so that was another reason for anxiety. I had set pretty stiff targets for myself; what to study and from where. Everybody has high hopes from himself/herself and so did I. I was mainly targeting the big software firms like Adobe, Amazon, Google and the like.

Ekansh Preet Singh

According to you, what gave you an edge over others during the Facebook placement procedure?
Ekansh Preet Singh If you have been geeky since the beginning, it does help. I did numerous things in the field of computers and that helped increase my knowledge and depth and provided multiple facets to my resume. Also, these companies want you to not just know the theory but be able to implement it practically also. My practical knowledge plus my genuine interest in computers gave me an edge over the others (or so I feel). Another big advantage that I believe I had was the projects I worked on during my 4 years at NSIT.

Ekansh Preet Singh

What is your profile at Facebook? And at which Facebook office have you been posted?
Ekansh Preet Singh I am a Software Development Engineer at Facebook at their Menlo Park campus, California.

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Ekansh Preet Singh

You were selected for GSoC, twice. How was the experience? What type of projects did you work on while you were in NSIT? Do you think your internships helped you during placements, especially at Facebook?
Ekansh Preet Singh My projects, particularly GSoC, helped me a lot during placements; both in Amazon and in Facebook. During two interviews in Amazon and two interviews in Facebook, I was asked about my favourite project. It sort of set the tone of the interview for me. I had basically been a web developer in college and did projects using PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and the like. Both my GSoC projects, ThinkUp (Expert Labs) in GSoC 2010 and StatusNet in 2011, were primarily in PHP and Javascript and were a massive learning experience. They taught me how to write a professional code which is easy to understand and is optimized. They taught me about the various architectures being used in the industry. Being a Google intern does leave a good impression with the interviewer.

Ekansh Preet Singh

You were one of the most active members of NSITonline and CSI-NSIT. How was the learning experience there?
Ekansh Preet Singh NSITonline and CSI provided me with the start I needed. I started working actively in these societies right in my first year. At NSITonline, I did projects which helped me improve my technical knowledge. I learnt PHP because I had to work on an NSITonline project. At CSI, I organized events and thereafter took seminars; things that helped me build confidence. Also, most importantly, through these societies I came into contact with seniors who guided me whenever I required their help.

Ekansh Preet Singh

You are among the most influential figures at NSIT. What would be your word of advice for fellow NSITians.
Ekansh Preet Singh I have learnt a lot from the placement season. First, one should have at least one or two good projects. These can be projects with teachers or with organizations, any open source work or anything that you wanted to work on. Just make sure you learn something from them. It is not the certificate of internship that is important, it is the knowledge gained and the learning experience. You should have worked passionately on the project, taken it to completion and learnt a lot during the process. You should be able to present it to the person sitting in front of you. Im not saying that it is compulsory, but it is certainly a big help. Second, placement season is one of the most tormenting times, mentally and emotionally. You shouldnt sit for a company thinking that Isme toh hona hi nahi hai. Main toh bas experience ke liye aaya hoon. You must come with a positive frame of mind, with the intention of cracking the company, only then will you actually be able to do it. Finally, you shouldnt think that someone who is better than you has to get placed before you can get your chance. And honestly, there is a lot of luck involved in placements. As much luck as hard work, if not more. Study well, stay positive and be strong! You shall definitely have your day!

Ekansh Preet Singh added a new photo

by Veeresh Goswami
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from the diaries of FOURTH YEARS

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About Saurabh Modi

He is a Computer Science student of the Batch of 2013, currently in his fourth year. He describes his college life as a prodigious one and believes that NSIT gives you a lot of free time to pursue your interests. The academics dont really pose any hindrance. His word of advice to his fellow juniors at NSIT is to be engaged in projects and various activities in college and gain practical knowledge via online courses and maybe even coaching institutes. His best moments at NSIT were those spent in Moksha11 during the pop night, which eventually gave him a headache that lasted for three days. He is placed at Facebook and is satisfied and happy. He shared his experience, or success mantras as you may like to call them, with us. So, read on!

Saurabh Modi

What was your approach while entering the placement season? Were there certain companies that you were targeting?
Saurabh Modi See, I was interning at Amazon IDC, so I never really found any time to prepare for the placements. The transition into the placement season was quite sudden for me. One day I was interning in Hyderabad and the next day, I was sitting for Adobe .Since I hadnt really prepared myself for placements as such, my sole aim was to just survive instead of trying to do extremely well. One thing that I believe paid off was the CAT coaching that I did for aptitude tests in placements. Dont get me wrong, I have no intention of doing an MBA right now, but I just joined CAT coaching so that I could do well in the aptitude questions that most tech companies tend to ask. The unfortunate thing is that people who plan on doing an MBA tend to crack such aptitude exams and those who want to stay in tech dont. So, CAT coaching definitely helps in general, even if you dont want to do an MBA. But this, of course, is subjective. Once you clear the written exam, youre on your own again and only your technical skills help. The other thing that helped me a lot was that I have always been active on platforms like spoj and codechef. I started doing this after 3rd semester break with Mukul, a friend of mine. To answer the last question, I wasnt really targeting any specific company. I just wanted to get into one of the good A++ companies like Amazon, MS, etc., or if possible, dream companies like Facebook or Google. Frankly, I wasnt looking forward to the placement season. This is such an anxiety ridden time .Thankfully; I didnt have to face any of its fire.

Saurabh Modi

Take us through the entire placement procedure of Facebook, from the written rounds till the final online interviews.
Saurabh Modi The placement procedure of Facebook consists of a written round and 4 interview rounds. Written round tends to be the hardest one. We had to write codes that could pass some test cases. After that, there were 4 interview rounds in the college guest house. The interviews continued for the entire day and were based on DS/Algorithms only and not on subjects like OS and Networking. The best part was that we were allowed to code in any language we were comfortable with. The interviewers were quite friendly. They expected us to code whatever solution we could propose and preferred clean code. Fumbling on a question isnt a major issue if you can eventually produce a code that works fine. They also asked me about the project that I did at Amazon. Overall, it was a really nice experience.

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Saurabh Modi

According to you, what gave you an edge over others during the Facebook placement procedure? It was a slightly long process, so how were you able to maintain the self-belief that you could pull this off?
Saurabh Modi Haha, it wasnt really a long process. The results of the written round were announced 3-4 days after the test and we had the interview rounds after that. All the interviews ended the same day and the results were announced the next morning. So, it wasnt really a long process. Again, the fact that I was able to code the solutions fast (faster than the others) was the main thing. The interview questions by themselves werent too hard. Plus, online judges do help a lot. Implementation/thinking skills improve drastically when youre active on such competitive platforms.

Saurabh Modi

What is the profile you are being offered and what type of tasks would you be entrusted with, at Facebook? And at which Facebook office would you be posted?
Saurabh Modi The profile that Im being offered is that of a Software Engineer. There are a variety of teams at Facebook. Each person has to go through 6 weeks of boot-camp, wherein he/she learns a lot of things. During boot-camp a person gets to work with different teams, and at the end he has to choose the team he/she is best fit for. So, all in all, theres a great deal of freedom and responsibility entrusted to each engineer. Ill be posted at Menlo Park, California.

Saurabh Modi

What type of projects and technical activities did you work on? How did they help you?
Saurabh Modi I did a simple chat client application project in my 2nd year with my friends Rachit Goel and Varun Sharma. It was basically a system wherein a central server existed and clients were connected to it. Message sent by any one client was broadcasted to other clients. Apart from this, I have done one intern project at Amazon.

Saurabh Modi

Do you think your internships helped you during placements, especially at Facebook?
Saurabh Modi For most of the part, I am a very lazy person. The only technical intern that Ive ever done was the one I did after my 3rd year, at Amazon. It did help quite a lot in the Facebook interview round 4. They asked a lot about the challenges that I faced and the ways in which overcame them. Thankfully, because of the intern I had a lot of stuff to say. My mentor at Amazon, Mr Abhay Dang, is one of the best and most respectable teachers I have ever had. He understood the challenges an intern faces, and tried to make my project as enjoyable as possible. I learnt a lot from him.

Saurabh Modi

What all societies had you joined in the college? How was the learning experience there?
Saurabh Modi I had joined IEEE, CSI and Rotaract when I was a fresher. I participated in one or two drives, it was a nice experience. But then realized soon enough that my interest, programming on online judges and algorithms, didnt really coincide with the work these societies did. So I stopped being a part of these societies.

Saurabh Modi

You are, at present, one of the most influential figures at NSIT. What would be your word of advice for fellow NSITians.
Saurabh Modi My advice to NSITians would be to do whatever they like to do, and have fun while doing it. Theres this constant rat race in almost all technical colleges, and unfortunately, that exists in NSIT too. Separate yourself from the rat race as soon as possible, find your passion and pursue it. Dont do interns just because others are doing it too. Dont do things just for adding another bullet point to CV. Dont do anything just because your friend is doing it, do it because you want to. Above all, have fun and never give up on what you like because it seems hard at the moment.

by Akanksha Dangi
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About Vaibhav Mittal

He is a Computer Engineering student of the Batch of 2013. He describes his life at NSIT as full of fun and excitement. In his words, There is so much to enjoy, from fests to boring college routine, from movie outings to copying assignments, from overnight hostel CS to sleeping in class and many others things. This is the place where I made friends for life. Every moment spent with them is special to me and I would always cherish those memories.

Vaibhav Mittal

What was your approach while entering the placement season? Were there certain companies which you were targeting?
Vaibhav Mittal I wanted to study further so I just wanted a job at the back end. I had limited my dictionary of companies to a few, namely Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Adobe. It helped me focus better, rather than targeting any and every software company. It is good to decide what your target is before the placement session because it helps you streamline your efforts towards a particular goal.

Vaibhav Mittal

Take us through the entire placement procedure of Facebook, from the written rounds till the final online interviews.
Vaibhav Mittal There was a written test first, consisting of 1 coding question which we had to complete in an hour. It was a difficult graph based problem. It was followed by selection of 5 students from our college for further interviews. Our interviews were scheduled with the DTU students. There were 4 technical interviews all of which had a fixed pattern. First, the interviewers introduced themselves to me and proceeded by asking for my introduction. Then, they asked a couple of technical algorithms-data structures based questions, and finally, they gave me some time to ask anything about Facebook. Every aspect of interview was important. Although the questions asked were easy but the interviewers expected a bug free solution in the first attempt.

Vaibhav Mittal

What do you think, gave you an edge over others during the Facebook placement procedure?
Vaibhav Mittal Confidence is what gave me an edge over others. It is important to have good communication skills, development, design and testing skills for top-end companies but they also test your confidence, attitude and personality.

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Vaibhav Mittal

How did you prepare for the placement season?

Vaibhav Mittal I sat for the recruitment process of two companies. I interned at Microsoft IDC and was given an opportunity to go through the interview process for the job (PPI). I started a week before my scheduled interviews. I went over the interview questions asked in Microsoft. To refresh the knowledge of basic data structures and algorithms, I went over geeksforgeeks.org and Crack, the Interview Book. Also I did CLRS. That was it for Microsoft. Preparing for Facebook is entirely different. It is because the process followed by Facebook is more rigorous than the one at Microsoft. I had gone through the written questions generally asked in various colleges in the past. After clearing the written, I just revised CLRS once.

Vaibhav Mittal

What is the profile you are being offered and what type of tasks would you be entrusted with, at Facebook? And at which Facebook office would you be posted?
Vaibhav Mittal I am being offered the Software Engineer profile at Facebook, Menlo Park office, California.

Vaibhav Mittal

Do you think the internships and projects you did were helpful to you? Also tell us a little about the projects and internships you were associated with.
Vaibhav Mittal Internships and projects help a lot, in gaining experience in your field and also for placement season. I did my internship at the end of my third year at Microsoft IDC in Server Tools and Business Division under Developer Analytics team. It helped me get familiar with cloud computing and the software development process of an IT-giant. Apart from the normal curriculum at NSIT, I am doing a project on E-learning systems under Dr. Shampa Chakraverty.

Vaibhav Mittal

What all technical events or societies were you a part of? How did they contribute in making you what you are today?
Vaibhav Mittal Societies: CSI Technical Events at college: Bug the bug, Code battle, Math wrath The thing which helped me the most was the NSIT programming group on Facebook. Under the guidance of seniors, I was able to compete with my batch mates and seniors and work on my weaknesses. Apart from societies, coding on various online judges was the key pillar to my growth and learning process.

Vaibhav Mittal

You are, at present, one of the highly commendable personalities in the campus. What would be your message for fellow NSITians.
Vaibhav Mittal Guys, you are at one of the best institutions of our country for engineering. Stop thinking about placements/package, enjoy the college life. Find your passion in engineering and you will get the best in life.

Vaibhav Mittal added a new photo

by Akanksha Dangi
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About

CROSS LINKS
NSIT has umpteen number of societies, ranging from technical to cultural. But then there are those which cannot be classified into categories, and are an integral part of the college. One such society is Crosslinks. Crosslinks is the official media management society of NSIT, which works for promoting the brand name of NSIT in and around Delhi. Each academic year, Crosslinks organizes the orientation of various societies for the freshers. This is followed by The Freshers Week wherein the newbies get to understand the functioning of various clubs and societies and can select the ones they want to be a part of. Crosslinks brings forth various student initiatives, accomplishments and activities through frequent newsletters and the official college magazine. It also provides NSITians with the platform to participate in talk shows conducted by NDTV and Doordarshan. Over the years, Crosslinks has emerged as a student forum which provides the students with comprehensive information. At the same time, it has endeavoured to create a niche for NSIT in the educational arena.

The Team
4th year - Sakshi Jain, Vibhor Relhan 3rd year - Abhay Pruthi, Anshay Deshwar, Harveen Oberoi, Nilanjana Goel 2nd year - Akash Malhotra, Akanksha Dangi, Akshay Pruthi, Gaurav Gupta, Jalaj chadha, Rachit Jain, Ragini Lalit, Sahil Pruthi, Sreetika Ray Mohaptra, Sumant Arora, Videt Jaiswal
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