Advice for becoming more confident in programming I apologize if this isn't the right kind of forum to ask this question, but I've been feeling helpless.

I'm in my 4th year in college as a CS major. However, I am horrible at programming (relative to my peers). I'm just not very smart in general and I'm extremely unconfident when given a programming assignment and during coding interviews.

Because of this, I've tried to go into finance but I'm already behind, starting so late (when all my peers have had investment banking, private equity internships for the past 2 years). Full time recruiting is going on right now, and I applied to both programming and finance positions, but I don't think I'm prepared for either type of interview. Even though I feel like I'm studying really hard, I don't feel like I'm getting any better.

Can people please recommend the best ways to study for these interviews in a short period of time?

I've tried HackerRank but I'm really slow at solving problems and I don't feel I'm being efficient. How would you advise someone who's a complete beginner, i.e., knows basic data structures in C++ (and is also unfortunately not a fast learner) to prepare for coding interviews, in say, a week? (Other than just for a different field :( ) How would you break down each day of studying like? What sources would you recommend?

And any other advice would be really helpful - thanks for reading through
I think you are probably asking the wrong question. You aren't going to become a good programmer in a week. Or a month. Maybe not in a year unless it is well structured. 

My advice is to figure out what you are good at, not what you are bad at. Seek jobs that play to your strengths. Not every person that works in computing does so as a programmer, for example. I once told a student who was struggling in a hard course that she would probably wind up as the manager of all the superstar programmers in the class. Why? Because she asked the right questions. Often enough the question is more important than any answer. 

You can't go back and undo the mistakes you made getting to where you are. But if you figure out your strengths and write applications that emphasize them and stress them in interviews you may be fine. Just don't suggest you are a programmer, nor stress that you are bad at it.