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Cisco recently visited the IIT BHU campus to offer a 2-month internship for the upcoming summer of 2023. An online coding round was conducted on hacker rank. The round consisted of 2 coding problems along with 40 MCQs. Around 700 students appeared for it.

Online coding Round (1 hour 30 minutes): All of the commonly used coding languages such as C++, C, Python, Java, etc were available. This round consisted of 40 MCQs and 2 Coding problems and we were allowed to simply navigate between the questions.

Coding problems: 1.) Question was based on Floyd Warshall algorithm / Dijkstra’s algorithm. 2.) This question was also based on Graphs and in this we were asked to place some towers on nodes of a graph such that each node may have a tower or any adjacent node having a tower. We were asked to output a minimum number of such towers.
MCQs: There were 40 MCQs and were based on topics like Aptitude, OS, OOPs, and Computer Networking.
Verdict of Online round: 40 students were shortlisted for interviews.

Acing Techniques: You should have a good knowledge of the fundamentals of Computers and some basic knowledge of networking.


I had 3 Interview Rounds (2 Technical and 1 HR) after qualifying online round.

Note: If you don’t have any idea about networking, you can still clear the interview. Just let the interviewer know that at the start of the interview with some valid reasons (not yet taught in the curriculum), having some knowledge of CN will surely provide you with an edge over others.

Technical Round 1: (Duration 50 mins): The interviewer asked me to introduce myself. He wanted to know my tech stack and my areas of interest. Let me tell you, networking was not taught to us till the 4th semester, but i a few basic concepts of computer networking and this really helped me edge over other students who were not aware of computer networking. As he got to know, that I have an interest in networking, he asked me what things I have explored as of now. Then he asked me to explain the term networking and the types of networks. He then asked me about Peer to Peer and Client-server networks. He also asked me to explain the advantages and disadvantages of both of them. He also asked me for an example of peer to peer network in real life. He also asked me about layering and switching in Networking. He asked me about the layering pattern that works in the functioning of Google Chrome. Then we had project discussions. Then he asked me to tell some instances of networking in OS. He asked me about the OS that I use. Then he asked me to explain various techniques of inter-process communication techniques between processes in OS, Working techniques of the message queue. Then he asked me, about my favorite data structure and I replied to the tree, Then he asked me about some problems related to trees. He also asked me to tell the STL container that uses trees in its internal implementation. He also asked about the possibility of searching a number in O(1) complexity with any space complexity. Then we have some discussion on Data structures and algorithms. No OOPs were asked of me in this round. At last, he asked me, that if I had any questions for him.

Verdict: 26 students qualified for Technical round 2.

Technical Round 2: (Duration 60 mins): This round also started with my introduction of mine. He asked me to explain my projects, their implementation, and what new issues they solve. I had one project as an e-commercial website that was based on the Django backend. He asked me how, my website is different from Big sites like Flipkart, Amazon, etc. He then asked me to explain the term “operating system” to a layman. He asked me to explain the term semaphore and busy waiting. He asked me to explain busy waiting using real-life examples. He also asked me about mutex locks and paging techniques in OS. I let him know that I have an interest in computer networking. He then asked me the following questions in CN:-

Difference between switches and routers.
Brief working of routers
Layers in OSI reference model
In which layer routers and switches are present in the OSI model?
Functioning of a few layers of the OSI model.
Various classes in IPV4 addressing.
Following DSA questions were asked:-

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/write-a-function-to-get-the-intersection-point-of-two-linked-lists/
Given a binary number(like 10001001) and an integer n, write a function to flip the nth bit using the bitwise AND operator and bitwise OR operator only, without any if-else casing.
Following OOPs, questions were asked:-

Difference between shallow copy and deep copy in oops.
Difference between copy constructer and copy assignment operator.
Explain inheritance with real-life examples.
Explain the deadly diamond of death problem and its solution.
Explain the advantages and disadvantages of OOPs.
Puzzle:

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/puzzle-7-3-bulbs-and-3-switches/
He then asked me whether I have any questions for him.

Verdict: 16 students qualified for the HR round.

HR Round: Duration(10 mins): The round was largely informative. I was told about the stipend, and the work expected of a summer intern and asked about my projects and previous internships. (As a tip, be sure that you have some knowledge about the company). He asked me a few questions:

Name some competitors of Cisco.
Tell any 2 current affairs related to Cisco.
Co-curricular things I do.
Interests
Preference order for the location of internship (Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, and Hyderabad). Then he asked me, why I opted for Bangalore as my first preference.
Any questions?
Verdict: 8 students were finally selected. And fortunately, I was one of them.

Some tips:

Be regular with coding (Just practice more).
For acing OOPs, and OS-related problems read GFG articles thoroughly.
Complete all puzzles available on GFG.
At last have faith in yourself and almighty god.
Good Luck!
by Expert (30,360 points)