paperba1l's blog

Do you participate in Codeforces while having a Software Development Job?
By paperba1l, 11 months ago, In English

Hello,

Just started a thread to know about senior folks out there whose still participate in coding competitions.

Few questions you can answer to introduce yourself here - **** What did you study? How long have you been working on? What are you working on at your work? It would be great if you describe it some detail if it is interesting. What motivates you to still participate in codeforces?

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11 months ago, # |
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Great job managing Electrical Engineering with competitive programming, gives me hope that i can do the same as well (I'm in my sophomore year currently). How many hours did you practice each day and can you give some tips on how to manage my studies?

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    11 months ago, # ^ |
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    I started it in my last semester in college. I know very late compared to other guys.

    i was doing a software engg internship and I had time. It was then when I practiced hard and was able to pick DS like segment tree, BIT etc.

    i read all DS but never implemented them like FFT, geometry etc.

    advice: up solve and focus on implementation. If you are at rating X then practice rating x+500, and not x+1000. become comfortable in your rating range first
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11 months ago, # |
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I don't have many friends and I don't like parting. Therefore, I have a lot of free time. I have a group of friends who are interested in CP as well, so I give contests and later discuss approaches with them. This is "fun" for me and them, I guess.

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11 months ago, # |
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Because I didn't finish college

(In all seriousness, plenty of out-of college guys I know don't do cp as frequently, but they somewhat do, by organising contests as to give back to the community of highschoolers interested in CP more oppotitunities to gain experience)

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11 months ago, # |
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hobby

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11 months ago, # |
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i started cp in my summer vacation in university, got to blue after practicing for 3 months or so. Then my study got bussier so i stopped since then. I just started doing cp again this week after two year break.

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11 months ago, # |
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Escape from the complex life, because it will never give you an AC or WA immediately. If you learned something, there has no chance to give a retry. :P

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11 months ago, # |
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It's still fun to compete occasionally even if I cannot train like I used to in college. The skills we use here decay very slowly; I mostly find myself losing speed more than anything else.

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    10 months ago, # ^ |
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    do you feel it takes away lot of time which you could have otherwise spent on something else like socialising, reading, sports etc?

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      10 months ago, # ^ |
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      Imagine socialising,Also CP is kinda sport and it gives you immense pleasure after solving hard problems because you worked your ass off to detect a solution so I think its better than reading fancy novels or any other stuff.

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10 months ago, # |
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I graduated college 10 years back. I started CP two years back. In my time, there weren't as many resources and guidance as today. There were few groups that were into it and told us about ICPC. But outside of that not much awareness or recognition of it amongst college peers. I switched to a career in software engineering 2 years back from being an analytics consultant. I do CP now because the times have changed and my interest for competition in problem solving hasn't. Since it complements my work, I find CP useful. Outside of work, I've chosen CP to be my only hobby. That helps me do better which in turn keeps me interested.

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