With advancement, it’s important to walk with the trend. As you can see, the world is moving more towards IT, and everyone wants to upskill themselves with the best domains. And when we talk about the best IT domains, software development can’t be ignored. One thing that you must have a good grip on before entering the world of development is Data Structures and Algorithms. Undoubtedly, DSA is the most important skill that every good tech firm seeks in a software engineer or developer.
Every leading tech giant, be it service-based to product-based (such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Twitter) hires programmers/developers who are well-versed in the concepts of Data Structures and Algorithms. Also, DSA-based coding questions are asked in their tech interview rounds – thus, to crack their coding rounds, you must be good at DSA.
Learning DSA is quite important as Data Structures are the building block of software development and Algorithms provide efficiency while solving a problem. Hence, learning DSA will make you a better problem-solver and help you crack coding rounds in tech companies. To ease your learning, here are some of the best data structures and algorithms courses every developer must read.
Best Courses for Data Structures and Algorithms(DSA)
1. Data Structures and Algorithms – Self-Paced (neveropen)
The Data Structures and Algorithms – Self-Paced course, offered by neveropen, is one of the most-recommended courses to learn Data Structures & Algorithms and requires no prior knowledge of DSA. The entire course has been covered using the two most demanding programming languages: C++ and Java. In this course, you’ll get premium video lectures by Mr. Sandeep Jain, Founder of neveropen. It has recorded videos, practice problems, assessment tests, etc and you can learn at your own pace. This is a complete package that has been divided into 8 weeks of your learning period. It also comes at a pocket-friendly price. You can also get 24X7 doubt assistance for 6 months. If you’re a learner, you can also solve real-world tech problems. Hence, this course provided by neveropen is a must-read course if you want to grow in your software development career. This Data Structures and Algorithms – Self-Paced course on neveropen has already thousands of students land their dream jobs in tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Amdocs, etc.
What Will You Learn:
- Basics (Time and Space Complexity, practice problems)
- Mathematics
- Bitwise Operators
- Recursion
- Arrays
- Searching and Sorting
- Matrix, Hashing, and Strings
- Linked List, Stack, Queue, and Deque
- Tree, Heap, and, Graph
- Greedy
- Dynamic Programming
- Segment Tree
- Disjoint Set, etc.
Are you an aspiring SDE? This course is specially designed for you to get placed in top tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, here’s the right course for you. Covered with all these rich features, this is the best course for DSA.
- Level: Beginner to Intermediate
- Price: Paid (at an affordable price)
- Certification: Available
Course Link: Data Structures and Algorithms – Self-Paced (neveropen)
2. Advanced Data Structures (MIT)
Another best course for Data Structure and Algorithms is Advanced Data Structures by MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Open Courseware. This course has the best lectures which are divided into 2 sessions per week, 1.5 hours per session. You must have a basic knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms before starting this course. It is one of the oldest courses but as said “Old is Gold”, this course covers all the basic to advanced concepts of DSA. It comes up with lecture videos and hand-written notes, you must have a habit of scribing lectures, and work on given assignments (posted weekly), and projects. This course is mostly recommended for graduate-level students who have got prior knowledge of DSA basics.
What Will You Learn:
- Time travel
- Geometry
- Dynamic optimality
- Memory hierarchy
- Hashing
- Integers
- Dynamic graphs
- Strings
- Succinct, etc.
No certificate is provided in this course. So, if you’re interested more in learning, rather than grabbing certificates, this course is designed for you. You’ll be able to crack coding interviews with top tech companies after learning this course.
- Level: Graduate level
- Price: Free
3. Data Structures and Algorithms Python – The Complete Bootcamp (Udemy)
This course provided by Udemy is the best-known DSA course for beginners. This course covers every topic from concept, and visualization, to the implementation part. You need to have basic knowledge of Python, to begin with, this course. Also, there’s a lifetime accessibility you get with this course. It includes tons of examples and quizzes which you get after learning each topic that’s why it is step-by-step from scratch. Once done with this, you’ll be able to solve questions yourself and work on implementing projects. You improve your problem-solving skills, understand complex topics such as searching, sorting, and traversal, and work on codes for the implementation of each data structure.
What Will You Learn:
- Basic Concepts (Big O Notation)
- Arrays, Linked List
- Stack and Queue
- Hash and Trees
- Heaps and Tries
- Graphs
- Searching and Sorting
- Tree and Graph Traversal
- Problem-Solving, etc.
Anyone looking to get into product-based companies can enroll in this course and be ready for the interview rounds. No matter whether you’re from a non-tech background, this is purely a beginner-level course.
- Duration: 20 hours
- Level: Basic
- Price: Paid
- Certification: Available
4. Master the Coding Interview: Data Structures + Algorithms (Udemy)
Again, this is a great course for Data Structure and Algorithms provided by Udemy to help you ace coding interviews. Before, you start this course, also know that you should have an idea of JavaScript. It’s completely fine if you don’t have prior knowledge of DSA or computer science, this course covers all. You also get access to a private online chat community with developers to help you along with the course. Learn, implement, and use different data structures and algorithms. You become more confident and prepared for your coding interview rounds. Also, it comes in many languages such as French, Japanese, Spanish, and Turkish, etc. Overall, when you read this course completely, each of the DSA concepts will get clear.
What Will You Learn:
- Basics (Big O, Coding Problems)
- Arrays and Hash Tables
- Linked Lists
- Stacks and Queues
- Trees and Graphs
- Recursion, Searching (BFS, DFS), and Sorting
- Dynamic Programming
- Interview Ready
Want to land a job at the best tech company like Google, Microsft, Netflix, Meta, and Amazon, this course paves the way to get into it. You can easily crack coding interviews using this course.
- Duration: 19.5 hours
- Level: Basic
- Price: Paid
- Certification: Available
5. Algorithms, Part I, and Algorithms, Part II (Princeton University)
One of the best courses for learning DSA at Princeton University is provided by Coursera. This course entails all the important topics that every developer must know in order to build efficient software using DSA. It is a six-week designed course. This course is divided into two parts to ease your path in learning DSA.
- Part I mostly focuses on elementary data structures, sorting, and searching algorithms whereas
- Part II focuses on the graph and string-processing algorithms.
It comes with flexible deadlines, and you can learn at your own pace. You must have a basic knowledge of Java before start learning this DSA course. It significantly focuses on graphs, data compression, data structures, and algorithms. Also, it is free so you can access it anytime, anywhere.
What Will You Learn:
- Data Structure and Algorithms
- Undirected and directed graphs
- Minimum Spanning Tree
- Radix Sorts
- Tries
- Substring Search
- Regular Expressions
- Data Compression
- Reductions
- Linear Programming
- Intractability, etc.
This course is designed for those developers who already have an insight into working with DSA. It is recommended to have at least basic knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms before learning this course.
- Duration: 54 hours
- Level: Intermediate
- Price: Free
6. Algorithms Specialization (Stanford University)
The next best DSA course provided by Coursera is Algorithms Specialization by Stanford University. Through this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of algorithms and data structure and how it is required in every discipline of computer science. It will help all the programmers/developers to enhance their programming and logical-building skills. In this course, you’ll get to practice and master the fundamentals of algorithms with assessments. Every weekend you’ll get a set of MCQs to test your learning. Along with that, you also attend weekly programming assignments wherein you’ve to implement one algorithm using your desired programming language. In the end, there’s an MCQ-based final exam.
What Will You Learn:
- Asymptotic “Big-oh” notation
- Sorting and searching algorithms
- Master method
- Quicksort algorithm
- Heaps and Balanced Search Trees
- Hash Tables and Bloom Filters
- Dijkstra’s algorithm
- Breadth First and Depth First Search
- Greedy algorithms
- Dynamic programming
- Shortest paths algorithms
- NP problems
- Local search algorithms
This course acts as a complete package for those who want to crack technical interviews and dive deeper into algorithms concepts. Complete this course with the hands-on project and grab a certificate at the end.
- Duration: 4 months
- Level: Intermediate
- Price: Free
- Certificate: Available
7. Algorithms Course by IIT Bombay (edX)
Another best DSA course is provided by IIT Bombay (edX) – Algorithms which is a self-paced one. This is a six-week course wherein you’ve to spend only 6-8 hours per week. Also, it is free and there’s an option for upgrading the course in case you need it. In this course, you’ll learn to work with algorithms and also you can create them using sorting techniques like merge sort, quick sort, median finding, and searching algorithms. You need to have basic knowledge of data structures and their implementation. This course teaches you the best techniques to solve problems and how to make them efficient. You’ll learn on working with problems using algorithms and how data structures and algorithms can be used to design scaled-system.
What Will You Learn:
- Sorting algorithms
- Searching algorithms
- Median finding
- Order statistics
- Geometric algorithms (Polynomial Multiplication)
- String algorithms
- Numerical algorithms
- Matrix Operations, GCD, and Pattern Matching
- Subsequences, Sweep, and Convex Hull
- Graph algorithms, etc.
Since Algorithms hold the biggest power for all web companies and the most promising startups to function. This course is designed for aspiring developers to crack technical interviews and get placed at big tech companies.
- Duration: 6 weeks
- Level: Intermediate
- Price: Free
8. Data Structures and Algorithms (NPTEL)
This DSA course offered by NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) is again the best course for DSA. Lectured by Prof. Naveen Garg (IIT, Delhi), this course has 36 lectures in which you’ll get to learn well-explained concepts of DSA. The main objective of this course is to clear the basic concepts of DSA and their use in fundamental algorithms. This course is free for learning but if you need a certificate along with learning, you need to sign up with the NPTEL portal and then continue. Also, there’ll be case studies given to explain the concepts clearly.
What Will You Learn:
- Introduction to DSA
- Stacks, Linked Lists, and Queues
- Dictionaries and Hashing
- Trees and Traversals
- Ordered Dictionaries
- Deletion
- Quick Sort
- Avial Trees
- Tries
- Data Compression
- Priority Queues
- Binary Heaps
- Graphs
- Breadth-First Search and Depth-First Search
- The Union
- Dijkstra’s Algorithms
- Single Source Shortest Paths, etc.
This course provided by NPTEL has great value if you gain a certificate. This course will explain all the concepts of DSA so well that you’ll be able to crack any tech interview in top tech companies.
- Duration: 12 weeks
- Level: Intermediate
- Price: Paid
- Certificate: Available (For Paid Version)
9. Data Structures and Algorithms in Java (University of California San Diego)
The next course to learn and master DSA is Data Structures and Algorithms in Java by the University of California San Diego. This course helps you in solving computational problems. Using the programming assignments offered in this course, you’ll learn to implement those in various programming languages. You need to have a basic knowledge of object-oriented programming language and Java before beginning this course. You’ll be able to write scalable code by applying the required DSA in the right scenarios.
What Will You Learn:
- Arrays
- Linked List
- Stacks and Queues
- Dynamic arrays
- Disjoint Sets
- Hash Tables
- Binary Search Tree, etc.
By learning this course, you’ll be able to answer complex data structures and algorithms problems and with that, you can easily crack programming interviews. Also, in the corporate world, you can implement those DSA concepts in software development domains.
- Duration: 25 hours (it may take a week, depending on your hours of learning)
- Level: Intermediate
- Price: Free
10. Intro to Data Structures and Algorithms (Udacity)
The next free DSA course by Udacity, which is Intro to Data Structures and Algorithms comes with immense rich features. It includes rich learning content and self-paced learning which eases your way of learning DSA. This course also comes with interactive quizzes which help you in testing your knowledge in DSA. It is a video-based tutorial and has experienced engineers who review your supplementary examples. Also, you’ll get exercises to solve which makes you ready to solve industry-ready problems.
What Will You Learn:
- Introduction and Efficiency
- List-Based Collections
- Searching and Sorting
- Maps and Hashing
- Trees
- Graphs
- Case Studies in Algorithms
- Technical Interviewing Questions
- Practice Interviews, etc.
Through this course, you’ll learn how to explain your solutions to technical problems. Get ready to grab a good job offer through this free course.
- Duration: 4 Weeks
- Level: Intermediate
- Price: Free
- Certificate: Available
**This list is prepared by our internal team after a comprehensive research practice. You can opt for any of the course(s) mentioned in the list (or other than these), based on your own requirements & preferences, to start learning DSA. Though, irrespective of the course you choose, be consistent and dedicated to the learning process to achieve the targeted goals. **
Conclusion
When it comes to cracking tech interviews, DSA is the first and foremost topic that hits any software developer’s mind. To help you in learning DSA, the above-mentioned are some of the best courses for Data Structures and Algorithms. All the courses mentioned above have rich content, and well-explained lecture videos, and are also the best ones. Choosing any of the best courses will definitely help you in paving the way to entering into the corporate (or tech) world.
Related Courses:
FAQs
Is there any roadmap for beginners to learn DSA?
Yes, if you’re a beginner, here’s a Complete Roadmap To Learn DSA From Scratch.
Why DSA is important for placement?
Learning DSA increases your chances of getting hired by big tech companies, the reason being – it helps in solving the problem in a more optimized manner and thus makes the program efficient and effective. It gives you an idea of choosing the best algorithm at the right place.
Is DSA important for web development?
Although it’s nothing like without DSA, you can’t go for web development – learning DSA helps you to come up with more optimized solutions. Since, DSA is the basic building block of software development, having sufficient knowledge of DSA would help you to deliver efficient solutions. For example, while building a website, DSA becomes necessary for efficient storage management to make your website run faster.
Where DSA is actually used?
DSA is used in various modules of software development. Some of the best use cases of DSA are:
- Linked Lists: can be used in music players while switching the music.
- Stacks: Messages, and call logs in a cell phone are arranged in stacks
- Queues: The request is being responded to by the server
- Graph: GPS navigation system used shortest path APIs
- Tree: Indexing in databases
