I have helped interview at my current company which is a Fortune 50. Typically it is split depending on whether the person is more senior or junior. Since you mentioned college I’m going to assume you fall somewhere on the junior side of the scale.
For junior positions I am mostly looking to see that the person is eager to learn and has a good mentality. This means that the person doesn’t have a huge ego, talks passionately about projects, etc. red flags would be not knowing extreme basics like functions or variables. IMO for junior positions culture fit is way more important. I want someone that will learn and grow with the team.
While I can’t help with recommendations for all of your interests, for climbing I recommend Magnus Midtbo, Adam Ondra, and Daniel woods and co “mellow” channels. Usually from those three I can find high quality climbing content via recommendations.
I always use my left hand. My left hand is quite dominant on my keyboard. There are only a couple keys that I use my right hand for. fwiw I can type reasonably fast.
If there is a gym close to you, I recommend rock climbing if you are looking for something both mentally and physically stimulating. It’s like solving a puzzle (figuring out how to do the climb) and then executing by having the strength and technique to do it. It’s an absolute blast. Been doing it for a couple years and it brings me a lot of happiness. Plus the community is so open and welcoming! Slowly all my friends have become people I’ve met from those communities.
This a good list, but with some exceptions. At work I use laravel (php) and it is reasonably pleasant, works well, and is fast to develop with. On the other hand, I have been working on a project with nodejs/express/sequelize, and I have to say I’ve been a little let down. I love JavaScript and I like node a lot, but the lack of features in very popular libraries is worrisome. I found myself really disliking sequelize, and express still doesn’t support async/await natively.
I have had the same experience as you. Duolingo in particular I think provides a false sense of progress, as it can be somewhat of a guessing game that is pretty easy. What I have found the best is to use a flash cards type app, creating different categories: verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. after all, a lot of learning a language is memorization. Supplementing this with watching tv with subtitles has proven to be pretty effective for me, but of course as you say, nothing is better than being in a place and speaking the language every day.
See if there are any gyms near you! Also, the climbing community in general is very welcoming. I've met tons of really nice people by just hanging around the gym, and I'm not a particularly social person
I've found rock climbing to be a great hobby. It stimulates my mind (being able to figure out sequences and route reading), and is also very physical. It's a great balance, and a really great change of pace from sitting behind a desk. Plus, gyms are popping up everywhere these days.