about halfway through there is a list of common things even the toughest interviewers in the industry ask about. Read about all of those just to get a good overview. He just talks about interships but those skills will get you fulltime also. Trust me a bunch of people would love to have that guy full time.
He'll help you fill out most of the rest of what you need to know but most importantly teach you about a subject that will make you feel alot better about what you feel like you don't know. The interview Anti-Loop. Basically two interviewers at a large enough company could interview each other and no-hire each other because of the questions they would ask in an interview but are only there because a third that has different interests interviewed both of them.
Now you've got the basics of what you need to learn more about which is largely data structures and algorithms.
Now you're ready to do some functional programming. learn some lisp. I happen to be reading the excellent Land of Lisp book myself now and recommend that also their is http://learnyouahaskell.com/starting-out. I'm sure there are other free online resources other guys here will point out also
Now you can get into Norvig and SICP and go even deeper.
I didn't start with them because Norvig starts out discouraging you ,not that he isn't right about how it will take time to improve just that you will be amazed at how fast you can move when you really want it, and SICP can be really daunting if you start with it.
Also there is a great well of books and tutorials online about all the things you want to learn. Compliers to the cormen book you mentioned. The fact that you tried with that book means you are on the right track and you will get it.
Those sites are places to hone your skills by working on coding problems. The biggest thing you have to do is pick some topics/ problems you are interested in and CODE.
You'll be surprise how far you get and how fast you can get there.
Good suggestions. One addition: You should learn Lisp eventually for the macros. But for your first introduction to functional programming (or computing in general, if you have a mathematical bent) choose something pure like Haskell or Clean. They won't muddy the waters with side-effects, or let you escape into assignments.
about halfway through there is a list of common things even the toughest interviewers in the industry ask about. Read about all of those just to get a good overview. He just talks about interships but those skills will get you fulltime also. Trust me a bunch of people would love to have that guy full time.
Second you have to read yegge. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...
He'll help you fill out most of the rest of what you need to know but most importantly teach you about a subject that will make you feel alot better about what you feel like you don't know. The interview Anti-Loop. Basically two interviewers at a large enough company could interview each other and no-hire each other because of the questions they would ask in an interview but are only there because a third that has different interests interviewed both of them.
Now you've got the basics of what you need to learn more about which is largely data structures and algorithms.
Now you're ready to do some functional programming. learn some lisp. I happen to be reading the excellent Land of Lisp book myself now and recommend that also their is http://learnyouahaskell.com/starting-out. I'm sure there are other free online resources other guys here will point out also
Now you can get into Norvig and SICP and go even deeper.
"Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years" http://norvig.com/21-days.html
"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html
I didn't start with them because Norvig starts out discouraging you ,not that he isn't right about how it will take time to improve just that you will be amazed at how fast you can move when you really want it, and SICP can be really daunting if you start with it.
Also there is a great well of books and tutorials online about all the things you want to learn. Compliers to the cormen book you mentioned. The fact that you tried with that book means you are on the right track and you will get it.
Also I can't forget http://www.topcoder.com/ http://projecteuler.net/
and newcomer http://www.coderloop.com/
Those sites are places to hone your skills by working on coding problems. The biggest thing you have to do is pick some topics/ problems you are interested in and CODE.
You'll be surprise how far you get and how fast you can get there.