How to balance Development and DSA

 

When you get the gist of the internship and placement scene, you stumble across a simple but fucked up doubt,
DSA VS COMPETETIVE.
which to pay attention to?
which one to prefer over another?
How much time for both?
Well, let us look at all of them.

(I am a computer engineering student and so am saying all this from personal experience)

why DSA?

it doesn't depend on which employment you go for, irrespective of internships or placement the interview rounds demand a good grip over  DSA.

You need a decent grip over each topic and the selection environment is like a coding competition, time complexity, good logic building, etc. All skills are required which are the ones you learn during contests on CodeChef, code forces.....you get it.so but naturally you need to pay a good deal of attention to DSA throughout your preparation.

why DEVELOPMENT?

now you may or may not think that iF DSA is so important, why don't I invest all of my time in it?

Why don't pass the interviews with flying colours?

Well DSA is important to get you in the company, more or less, but which company you go in a d what finalizes your job is development,

You can go for app development or web development according to your interests. of course all this talk doesn't apply to people inclined towards machine learning and data science.

How to manage both?

=>without college workload

Now you need to start DSA early so that you develop a good grip over it and you cross the interview barrier smoothly;

Starting developing early makes you very creative in that field, the knowledge compounds itself and the projects you make get refined over time so much that by the time interview comes you will have projects that will make you stand out.

Now both being so important you need to focus on both, a little more to development than DSA because it is the real deal, the one you will work in.

The best way to do this is by dividing your time,

Simple but f@#$&ing awesome trick.

If you are an early waker then give your morning to development (like the time before lunch) and afternoon and evening to DSA (like after lunch break to sleep).

If you are a night person just swap DSA and development.

This will make your preparation ironclad,

And will avoid you the hassle(coming from experience). You will have a perfect balance.

=>withcollege workload

Now when you are attending college,this schedule doesn't completely shamble. After you are done with your college work which must be till around 6 in the evening.

Now you have time after taking a break and also an extra little time before college in the morning so just divide your remaining time again in an appropriate ratio giving more time to development(like giving time to development till you sleep and doing DSA in the morning )

All in all, just don't think about DSA while doing development and don't think about development while doing DSA.

A perfect healthy balance with sufficient breaks and fun will make you an excellent coder.

 

To shed a little more light I would like to suggest this video from coding ninjas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsAR43GL9fw

(this video is in hindi)

I hope you liked this blog.

Do comment and tell me your opinion(it helps me get better).