As a 2027 CSE student, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to decide where to spend my time.
On one side, there’s DSA and competitive programming — problem solving, algorithms, contests, and interview preparation.
On the other, there’s AI/LLMs, full-stack development, cloud, agents, RAG, and real-world projects — skills that seem increasingly relevant to the kind of software being built today.
And then there are internships, hackathons, open-source contributions, system design, and college academics on top of all that. ![]()
So I’m curious:
If you were a CSE student graduating in 2027, how would you divide your time between DSA and modern development/AI skills?
Would you:
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Focus heavily on DSA until placements?
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Maintain DSA while building AI/full-stack projects?
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Prioritize projects and learn DSA mainly for interviews?
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Follow some completely different approach?
I’d especially love to hear from people who have already gone through placements/internships.
What actually helped you the most when you started interviewing?