Someone asked me for advice. They are a first-year college student aiming to be interview-ready for internships for their second year. They already had a solid plan for studying DS&A and were thinking about projects to build.

This is what I had to add, in case it's useful to others or others have different suggestions.

- Try to keep the practice sustainable since they are not immediately looking for jobs. One of the advice in the 'How To Practice' chapter is: "Plan for your worst week, not your best week," i.e., life will get in the way, and that's ok. slow and steady wins the race.
- For project choice, you will learn a lot more if it's something you are intrinsically interested in and not just doing it to pad your resume. But it's probably good if you can think of high-value keywords that you can put in your resume.
- Use cursor or similar to build your projects. It will boost your productivity. But still try to understand the code in depth.
- University should also be about forming connections and meeting people. Your classmates will go on to join many different companies and can be a source of referrals. Have a LinkedIn and add them. AI is making it so online applications are much harder for recruiters to sort through, increasing the value of direct connections.