It has become very popular recently and has been the most heard word in any college in India, coz guess what it gets you a good job.
Some people like it a lot and consider it as a sport, some people do it because they think it will help them in getting a good job in google or facebook. Maths + Data Structures + Algorithms is what I call Competitive programming.
No matter what your alignment is, if you are good at it, things are going to be easy for you for sure.
What exactly is Competitive programming?
It's a sport like football or cricket which is played with maths and code.People from all over the world
compete to be good at it and there are world wide competitions like ACM ICPC to recognise the talent in this sport.
In India it has emerged as a job giving accolade at least in the perception of a wider
audience which in fact is true also. If you are good at CP, there will be almost no interview
in which you are going to be rejected with respect to coding part.
It also makes the resume shine out if you have achieved some great accolades in CP.
There are definitely some other ways to get a great job too, and if you don't do cp
you can just do leetcode with Data Structures and Algorithms and that too will get you a good job.
Though doing CP for getting a job is not a wise choice coz it's a very long and difficult path,
Though it definitely makes your resume shine, there are other ways too to make it shine.
But in all if you like problem solving, maths and Algorithms it's a very good thing to pursue and will help you.
How to start?
There are two very famous CP platforms codeforces, codechef, the most popular one is Codeforces.
but you can also practice over codechef.
So there are regular contests over these platforms and the way you perform in them decides your rating
on these platforms and rating is something every player strives for.
Rating is a motivating factor which will make you work hard and will motivate you to make it better and better.
I would suggest not to start contests directly as it will demotivate you a lot,
instead first practice for few months like 2 or 3 solved around 200 questions over these platforms and then jump into contests.
How to practice?
First learn touch typing it will help you a lot in long run, get to know the position of keys
and then you just keep on practising with it while writing code, don't look at the keys in 10 days or so you will become better at it.
Now the most important part is practice, practice is the only thing which can make you good at CP.
Practise religiously for 2 months everyday around 3 questions atleat.
If you are a total beginner, a2oj.com, this is a website on which some ladders are there,
start from ladder 1, and then just keep on working on the problems. Solve a problem for max 1 hour
and if you are not able to find solution then see the solution on the tutorials
always look at other people's code this will give you a better idea how others write the code(this is very important)
Now when you are done with practice you can also start giving contests now ,along with your regular practice.
In the first contest you will be able to solve 2-3 questions, always attempt 1 question more than you were able to solve, at the end of the contest, this regular practice must continue too.
Contests, practice, contest practice that's all you need now.
If you continue this for around 6 months, I am sure you will become very good at it.
Once you are able to solve around 4 problems, you may call yourself good and now you can lower the practice a bit, and focus on leanring new techniques.
Cp Algorithms is a great website for this.
There are also some books which you can refer, like Competitive programming 3, Handbook of Competitive Programming.
Here you will be able to see all the relevant topics, tricks and algorithms.
You can read them even before starting all this.
I promise you that if you do the above said things religiously you will be great at Competitive programming
very soon and it will help you in placements etc too.
Also doing leetcode can also help you in placements, but if you are in first year, do focus on CP rest everything will be easy.
Best of luck in your journey.
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