My First Interview

Dear friends,

It was 3 weeks ago since my last post , here I’m back today with a very interesting post to me, which is “My First Interview In eSpace“.

On last Monday 29 June 2009, I have received a phone call from someone, who asked me to get a pen and write this email, and asked me to send my CV to this email as they need me in an interview to take a training in eSpace in this summer. I do so and then they replied to me to go to the company and have an interview with eng. Ali Maher.

When I went to their I met eng. Ali Maher and started the interview, and here is the dialogue of the interview:

I entered I found my CV with him and after welcoming and a small introduction he start asking me some questions
eng. Ali: So, what about programming languages you used till now.
me:
First,I have learned VB6 in senior 1 in the school.
Then, I learned concepts of programming using BASIC in preparatory year in the college.
And in the Mid-Year vacation of preparatory year I took a programming using C course with eng. Mohamed Amir, and continue working with C the whole summer in the Algorithms training.
Also, I read in Python and try to work with it, but I don’t make any project with it.
In the 1st year in the Department I learned JAVA.
And in the end of the 1st year we are asked to make a project in Society course with php, My SQL, HTML, JS

eng. Ali: What is the language you will choose to make a certain project, if you have the ability to choose the language?
me: Really I will choose JAVA, as I worked a long time with JAVA than C or Python for example, but If it was a very important application that I care about efficiency of the application or the project, so I will start thinking in C/C++ or any other language to learn if it is better.

eng. Ali: OK, lets move the the trainings you have taken, can you talk about them please?
me:
February 2009: we took An Introduction to web development training under the auspices of ACM Chatper, as you took Introduction to web development, HTML & XHTML, CSS, JS, and JS using YUI
we took some assignments in this training in HTML, and JS..
February 2009: we took also a group of session in Introduction to undergraduate research, as Ahmad Saeed tried to transfer his experience in this field to us, as he tried to explain what is the meaning of Research, Paper,… and other expressions in this field, and explain the steps of this long journey in this field. But unfortunately we can’t complete these sessions, as he was very busy at the end of the period.

eng. Ali: So, in the Algorithms training what is the meaning of Adhoc problems?
me: Adhoc problems are the problems you can solve with thinking only, and it is not required to study a certain topic to solve these problems like for example the Graph theory or Dynamic programming.

eng. Ali: Can you give me an example?
me: OK, (then I explained to him a famous problem in my college which is called Milk , and then explained the answer).

eng. Ali: But you can solve this problem with Knap Sack, do you know it?
me: Yes, I know Knap Sack problems but I’m not so good in it, and I can’t solve with it.

eng. Ali: For example, A thief want to steal a flat and he has a bag, and you can put only less than 50 Kg in this bag, so he have to choose the things to steal it to have max cost to occupy this bag.
me: yes I know this example in Knap Sack and can solve it, but I don’t know how to solve other problems with it .

eng. Ali: OK, lets go to the activities section, and really it is full of activities ….
me: Thanks

eng. Ali: first one is blogging, so what is your last post in your blog?
me: It was about TopCoder SRMs

eng. Ali: What is TopCoder?
me: (I explained it to him, if you don’t know it you can read the previous post ).

eng. Ali: Second, so explain to me what you made in Imagine Cup, and what is your project?
me: We participated in Imagine Cup ‘08 Paris in “Project Hoshimi Programming Battle”. Simply, do you know strategic games like Red Alert & Generals
eng. Ali: yes
me: When you start a game like it you put a strategy in your mind and put it in cases, in case of .. I will make … and so on.
So, there was a game like these games with different rules and we are asked to make a strategy using programming and give them a .dll file, and then they divide all the files into groups and then all the files in each group with play with them selves and so on till they get the 1st team.
And I participated in this project with a partner, and we faced a lot of problems especially in the last month before the deadline, as we have worked all the time in the wrong track, and we understood this during our Mid-Term exams in April, so after the exams it was just 2 weeks before the deadline we have to learn VB.NET and try to understand OOP concepts and make our strategy and implemented it….
Finally we are from the Top 40 team out of 153 Team..
eng. Ali: nice

eng. Ali: Now, it is your time to ask me two questions.
me: OK, I have prepared a list of questions before the interview, but I don’t remember anything now , but of course the most important question what is your opinion about this interview??
eng. Ali: Really it was one of the interviews I really liked.
me: thanks for this interview, and I hope to be with you in this training in sha2 Allah .
eng. Ali: in sha2 Allah

Finally this was my journey with eSpace interview, and El Hamd L Allah after 2 days they replied to me with a mail to inform me that I will be with them in this training , and I will start the training on Sunday 5th July 2009 in sha2 allah.

Really I’m very happy to work with eSpacians and hope to do something valuable there in sha2 Allah…

Thanks,

Mohammad Kotb