How do you plan on using basic coding assignments from class lead into internships for major CS projects?

We can note the learning made from each coding assignments and invest those learning into major CS projects .

Expand on the core assignment and add additional functionality. Solve problems in ways that are novel to you and compare them. Document this all. And put it on github. Showing critical thinking abilities and a willingness to work through problems from multiple angles will be very attractive to people recruiting for internships.

With regards to major CS projects, focus on interesting functionality that you can add and expand on to make a really compelling and useful project.

Your coding assignments can help you during the interview process for an internship. Your interviewer may ask for examples of when you wrote code to solve problems. Making sure the code is available, clean, commented and following best practices is a great way to show you are ready to add value to your internship. It is also important to think about a few ways of solving the same problem and discuss trade offs.

Having a portfolio of previous work (or even just a single example) to show and be able to speak about during interviews is a great way to make yourself interesting to potential employers! This is something that I've often ask for when interviewing candidates for internship positions, or others new to the industry. It's also something that I did myself when getting into the industry.

Pick a specific assignment that had some interesting aspect to it, and invest in polishing your solution a bit so that you can use it as a showcase piece for future interviews.

This works best with larger 'project' style assignments. Write a brief document explaining your solution, the implementation choices you made while working on it, and what you're most proud of about it. Then, when you're asked about examples of projects you've worked, on, you can use this specific example, and also you'll have a written artifact that you can share if an interviewer wants a code sample. Taking the extra time to polish and document your solution will demonstrate your initiative and skills to interviewers.

If you're having trouble finding an assignment that seems meaty enough to use as a showcase in this was, try taking a smaller assignment that was interesting to you, and extending it beyond the original requirements in some way.

I discovered my interest in Technology through small classroom coding assignments. The assignments gave me the first exposure. I enjoyed working through the various challenges and gradually expanded my knowledge. As my interest grew, I decided to look for internship opportunities. I was able to show the interviewers, the work I had done, which got me the internship opportunity.