Has anyone attended coaching classes like CodingBlocks, PepCoding, CodingNinja etc?

[xkcd0137]

Hey people, my younger sis is a 3rd year student in CompSci in a Tier-3 college. Just like me she didn't study at all in her first 2 years and she has EVEN BETTER grades than I had .

Now she is in 3rd year and has fortunately started attending classes atleast. Also lots of companies have started visiting campus for offering interns. She couldn't sit for some due to grade eligibility and for those she sat, she wasn't prepared well. For eg. though she has studied DSA, C, Python but as she hasn't practiced a lot of questions, she wasn't able to solve few questions related with Knapsack problem, which she has studied btw.

I have asked her few times to refer leetcode and hackerank for problem solving but I haven't found any positive result yet. Now I have finally coaxed her to join one of coaching class for programming, as I don't want to leave anything to chance and want a good placement for her somehow, but not able to decide which one would justify spending the money on. I have found following coachings online, so if anyone has attended any of them kindly share your review -

CodingBlocks
CodingNinja
PepCoding
CodingElements
CodingBytes

 

[silverstar]

If I'm honest it's not worth it to spend money on any such programs. Geeksforgeeks and Leetcode (premium) are tried and tested methods along with Codeforces and/or Codechef (practice problems and periodic challenges). Studying alone is not sufficient unless your sister spends time practicing sample problems all of which are available for free and are excellent resources anyways. I would suggest to make her practice problems on Geeksforgeeks/Codechef/Codeforces and then analyze afterwards for mistakes or improvements. You will also find thousands of Youtube videos, playlists and blog posts explaining the very same concepts all for free.

What I intend to impress upon you is that freely available resources are equally good if not much better than any of these paid classes and if you think the problem is lack of practice then Leetcode (premium) is the best platform you can spend your money on. Obviously you can't expect immediate results but the key is consistent practice and lots of it.

Remember that none of these paid platforms you mentioned existed 5 years ago and for a ridiculously long time now everyone (even at the so called tier one institutions) have always referred to Leetcode + Geeksforgeeks along with practicing real time coding competitions on Codeforces/Codechef

 

[rdst_1]

Ask her to brush up her maths as that helps a lot. My brother restudied calculus and so many physics principles as well, when he started coding seriously. And after that, it's all about your own motivation. Solve as many problems as one can find for free online. All concepts are easily understandable through books and online material. If she doesn't need college teachers, she doesn't need coaching teachers either, unless it is really someone from the industry giving one-on-one coaching.

 

[Danielman]

Adding to what others have commented, if she wants to start slowly with little easy questions and then build up to tough questions (so she won't lose her motivation). I recommend CodingGames. Its a free site where there are tons of coding questions(disguised as fun real world puzzles) with a great community , you can choose topics and then start solving questions by level of difficulty. The site makes coding like a game and it's very addictive.

 

[xkcd0137]

What I intend to impress upon you is that freely available resources are equally good if not much better than any of these paid classes and if you think the problem is lack of practice then Leetcode (premium) is the best platform you can spend your money on. Obviously you can't expect immediate results but the key is consistent practice and lots of it.

I am a teacher myself and know it well that coachings don't add much. Also, I have been guiding her to practice from leetcode, hackerank, YouTube videos (freecodecamp etc) and prepare for Gsoc before she even entered her college but like many of us, she didn't study at all during first 2 years.

Now, though she has started studying but with companies already coming for interns and just an year left for placements, I don't want to risk her future and career on chance that she maybe able to cover the freely available online resources by herself in an organized manner.

One of my concern is that though there is lots of good material available online as stated by you but it's not available in an organized fashion so as to easily guide her what to do and when to do, especially focused towards getting an intern and placement atm. Hence, the urgency to join some coaching.

 

[silverstar]

One of my concern is that though there is lots of good material available online as stated by you but it's not available in an organized fashion so as to easily guide her what to do and when to do, especially focused towards getting an intern and placement atm. Hence, the urgency to join some coaching.

Leetcode premium has targetted material for specific companies if that's what you're looking for and the concepts are organized well in Geeksforgeeks if you want to follow some order. Anyways, I understand the direction you are coming from so this can supplement whatever paid coaching you end up opting.

I don't have anything to offer in terms of reviews of the particular coaching options listed but I wish the best of luck.

 

[sameep_s]

Hey, just adding my 2 cents. Assuming she is versed with programming concepts or atleast is comfortable reading though gfg articles on them. The straight and no fluff way i can suggest to get better is to do either luv babbar 450 list or the grind / blind 75. And then focus on the topics that werent covered. That is deep dive and simple instructions at the same time.

 

[nimr0d]

I enrolled in codingninjas during my freshman year, it's good if you have no experience in coding, they have doubt solvers and all. I found it worth it as I had 0 experience in coding and it gave me the boost i needed

 

[kvn95ss]

Not sure of OT, but I hope she knows how to use version control like github / gitlab, how to document code etc. I have not studied CS as such as my background is in biology / biotechnology. But now I'm doing Bioinformatics and am currently scripting in bash / python / R (AFAIK just above beginner in these languages, there's just so much to learn!).

I have two ex-colleagues, one who documented his code and one who didn't. Take a guess who I liked more

 

[singenaadam]

Leetcode also has courses, aimed at interviews. Check those out.

 

[frozenscotch]

Geeksforgeeks has its material structured and also categorized. Leetcode and other sites mentioned above have excellent questions to attempt. And then, you have unlimited sources in youtube.
All you need is hell lot of motivation and focus while going through the material and attempting these problems online. I dont think online teaching is intuitive enough to bring that logic out of your head which programming demands.
If she can get her classmates/friends and do group sessions (provided they are better than her), the ideas, logic and thought process behind it will have a free flow among the group and she will be more involved in this and chances are she might get the concepts quicker than any online sessions
And at the end of the day, she needs to put those code/logic on the paper, which helps a lot in interview

 

[itachim17]

Hey, just adding my 2 cents. Assuming she is versed with programming concepts or atleast is comfortable reading though gfg articles on them. The straight and no fluff way i can suggest to get better is to do either luv babbar 450 list or the grind / blind 75. And then focus on the topics that werent covered. That is deep dive and simple instructions at the same time.

I second this, I am in 4th year and got a good boost in both my confidence and placements with these, especially leetcode with my buddies. Healthy competition is always good.