A lot of people, especially students from all around the world are competing in programming events like IOI or ACM-ICPC.
Having Algorithmic and Data Structure knowledge is a must for all Computer Science jobs, and by competing in this kind of events, students become masters of these.
There are many ways to prepare for competitive programming, but the best piece of advice someone can ever give you is: Practice. Practice. Practice. Every. Single. Day.
Sure, it is really important to study lots of algorithms and data structures. But without practice you are no better than a book!
There are lots of ways to practice, for example:
- Codeforces — amazing platform with weekly contests and huge problemset
- The DCQ — our free mail newsletter with daily coding problems with explanations and suggested implementation.
- GeeksForGeeks— a website explaining most algorithms and data structures. They also have an amazing Youtube channel
Tips and tricks
- Practice the areas you dont feel quite confident in.
- Always upsolve problems you didn’t manage to do during the contest.
- Take part in lots of contests.
- Don’t get influenced by rating changes.
- Never copy code. You need to understand it, then implement it on your own.
- Solve one problem every day. Choose your own problem or solve the Daily Coding Problem sent by us.
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