The good Cornellians can do: Deepti Talesra ’21

When software engineers apply for a job, they are expected to complete technical coding problems as part of the interview process. These exercises are called LeetCode, and mastering them is a key part of successfully qualifying for a job. To help applicants with this task, Deepti Talesra ’21 makes and shares LeetCoding and technical interviewing prep videos on her YouTube channel.

To date, her content has had more than 800,000 views across more than 60 countries. Her videos have been featured in Medium, in LinkedIn and Reddit posts, and she’s hosted career development sessions for current students at Cornell.

“I receive messages and comments almost every day from people telling me how helpful the videos I’ve posted have been,” she says. “People tell me how they’ve used my videos to land jobs or to learn and understand better, and how they wish I’d keep making more content. It’s really motivating to realize that people all over the world are watching my videos!”

Deepti first started making these videos when she was a Cornell student. When she turned to YouTube for help learning LeetCoding, she realized that there was a gap. The videos she found lacked the step-by-step guidance she needed to succeed.

“I wanted to make sure that I was breaking it down enough that absolute beginners could understand it. And that it would be robust enough to show all the many approaches that could be taken for the problem—diving deeply not only into why a solution would work, but why others wouldn’t. And the more feedback I received, the more it reinforced the fact that people really valued what I was offering.”

Cornellians around the globe are sharing how they do good in communities big and small. Share your own story.