Programming Aptitude Test

[magus841]

Hello everyone!

I'm going for a job interview at a software company for a summer internship tomorrow. They want me to take a programming aptitude test. The person I spoke to said there shouldn't be any actual programming on it. But there will be math-related problems and such. I was just wondering what to expect and if anyone else had any experience with this sort of thing before. Thanks for the help

[Indefinity]

My one coworker had to describe abstractly how she would implement a hash map to the interviewer, and I suspect you'll be asked similar things. Other than that, I recommend basic data structures, big-O notation, maybe some basic set theory (if you're doing any sort of database work). If you've taken a discrete math or algorithms course, then expect some of the more fundamental stuff from that.

What year in school are you? I got my first summer internship between sophomore and junior years, and looking back, I really didn't know anything useful, yet they still took me and I'm still working for them now. Just make sure at the very least that you appear (or are) eager to learn and solve problems, and be personable and polite. They're looking for potential at this point, not necessarily what you know.

[magus841]

In all honesty, I don't know much. I just finished my junior year of undergrad, going into my senior year. But I just switched into the computer science major. So I've really only had introductory courses at this point (comp sci I & 2 and assembly language, & discrete structures but that doesn't have as much to do with programming). I'm really behind.

But I am very interested in having the job and I can be personable and polite haha. I'm dressing up and everything for it. Perhaps I'll look through my textbooks and go over those things that you said.

[baultista]

Most programming jobs I've interviewed for have asked about basic data structures and/or performance optimization. It really depends on the nature of the work. For a job as a Java developer, I was asked about design patterns, since everyone there was very OO-centric (as every Java developer needs to be, really).

Most of this stuff revolves around things a CS or CE student will learn in the first two years of a degree program. It's usually a cinche, even for a non-CS grad like myself

[Indefinity]

So how'd it go?