FreeJinG's blog

Is CP fun ?
By FreeJinG, history, 3 years ago, In English

Hello Codeforces community,

I am currently in my last year of high school, still undecided on what i would like to do in university.

I wonder, is CP (Competitive Programming) fun to most of you ?

Originally, i decided to keep doing CP in university and pursue ICPC, I didn't even aim for World Finals, just a guy trying to get better in what he does. But lately, I have been experiencing stress from doing CP, specifically, I managed to get a medal in my country's National Olympiad, and is currently going through the selection process to IOI, and from this selection, I felt stressed to do CP, though i still enjoyed doing casual CF and Atcoder rounds, I found myself in a position where I don't feel like doing CP anymore.

Will ICPC be a painful process ? Or is it a fun grind to most of you ?

Thanks.

UPD: Thank you for the responses, it has definitely given me some insight on what to do next.

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Comments Comments (31)
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

Yes, I enjoyed it every single day <3

The harder you try, the painful results you got day by day will make you stronger and better, and the fact still remain: CP is fun

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    10 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +36 Vote: I do not like it

    Never did I expect to enjoy Competitive Programming this much before. What a great memory that brings tears to my eyes. CP has created great moments with my friends and opened new opportunities for me. I met good friends and participated in a lot of contests. I then wanted to do something back and spent most of my time and money on many public projects. But while trying to contribute to the community, I have faced many upsetting events that have made me realize the downside and toxicity of CP. I have felt tired, stressed, and even desperate and depressed at times.

    Then, there were good people who enlightened me about how can I deal with it, why should I feel bad about myself, and what I need to do to overcome those events. Eventually, CP helped me grow up a lot. It has taught me valuable lessons and has pushed me to overcome challenges, you know, problem-solving skills, coding abilities, thinking critically, and how to treat people better. I also learned a lot of social skills while being a member of many great communities. I never regret spending time over nothing. Actually, I wish could do them better.

    So yes! Competitive Programming is fun. We can always have bad times in CP, but what important is we can learn from bad times, and we should try to overcome them instead of being fearful.

    Note: I am not trying to necropost, just for somewhat-ever a reason did I accidentally read the old comment that motivated me to continue on my journey, $$$no-matter-what$$$.

    Thanks for reading. This cat will bring you a good day!
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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 4   Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

i am sorry to hear that, but can i know the detail that make you feel stressed about cp?

Spoiler
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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

    can i know the detail that make you feel stressed about cp?

    CP is too hard.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    Honestly, i'm mostly stressed from the current ongoing selection to IOI, I stated that

    I still enjoyed doing casual CF and Atcoder rounds

    Was just afraid that going for ICPC would put the same burdens upon myself.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

CP is more than just fun. I can't even imagine lockdown days without codeforces:)

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Surely if you aim for achievements like ICPC, you have to work hard. There's no other way out. If you aren't good enough currently but you really want to go to ICPC WF, then you just have to keep practicing.
And now, the point is , do you feel stressed while practicing ? or do you enjoy it? If you initially felt 'fun' in solving problems and now you feel 'stressed', just think for a moment what changed between all these?
Are you worrying about letting others down by performing badly? Are you comparing yourself with others too much?

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +89 Vote: I do not like it

If it's not fun, then you should stop doing it.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +91 Vote: I do not like it

CP is still fun for me, but honestly speaking, it's not as fun as it used to be when I was beginner. I used to get fun just by getting AC, anything else didn't matter. Now that I have improved and know a lot of classical techniques, I find easy problems boring. Now-a-days I don't get much pleasure from coding / AC, I only enjoy the problem-solving part of creative problems where I need to think in a new way. Thinking is fun, but the more I practise the more problems become 'knowing what to think' from 'how to think'.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

    This is surprisingly accurate with how I currently feel towards CP.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +76 Vote: I do not like it

There is some level of psychological desensitisation you need to be able to participate in competitions. After skimming through a few articles, its seems to be agreed by practically all sports psychologists, that the optimal mindset for a competition is to completely disassociate the game with its importance.

For example, if you feel stressed during a competition, thinking about what if you do badly, being unable to avoid looking at standings, and any other similar stuff seems to be severe detriment.

During a competition, your only goal should be to maximise your score. And the reason is because you have to.

Actually, this is of non trivial importance to me, because everyone I know feels some sort of stress.

I have never been worried about what if my contest goes badly and other similar thoughts. I don't know how common this is, and it feels very weird to explain that to people who feel stress, because to me it is basically equivalent to "just don't feel stress".

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +20 Vote: I do not like it

    To elaborate more on what Everule said, try to compete and compare not with others, but with yourself.

    I definitely experienced this stress before in the past. It's really strangling to let people improve faster than you, even though you were above them in the past. Not being able to solve what your friends don't solve in contest also hurts.

    What I have done to reduce the stress is to not looking at the standings at all, uninstalling plugins that shows you the predicted rating delta, and do my absolute best. It doesn't matter whether I win or lose the competition, rise or drop in rating. Because I know that I'm better than I was.

    In addition, don't force yourself to practice hard everyday. Everyone has their own pace. And if you don't feel like doing a contest, then don't. Personally, feeling forced to solve problems is not fun and draining a lot of mental energy.

    TL;DR focus more on improving yourself, and don't force it out. Enjoy the problems you solve or contests you participate in.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

You don't gain much out of doing it besides the thrill. Ofc you getting coding experience but surely there are other things you could be programming that would help more that CP. Though perhaps you will do those things less if they aren't as fun as CP. Regardless, if you do commit to doing CP, I would say don't do it just so that you can do well in ICPC. If that's your only reason, it's not worth it. If you like it for what it is, I think it's worth it.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Yes, it is. It's just like any other game — grinding and getting new ranks is fun and a rewarding experience. Also seeing myself consistently improve is very satisfying. Regarding the actual problem solving — contests etc, I find it somewhat relaxing(similar to sports). You take a break from your everyday responsibilities and you force yourself to not think about them. If you feel stressed, don't do cp and find another hobby. If you force yourself, you are not going to improve very much.

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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Yes Cp is fun and also usually hard.

"If it was easy, there would be no satisfaction in achieving something here." - Errichto

all I am trying to do is to improve myself with fun and hard work.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

Even through all the stress, you made it to the next stage of IOI selection, congrats man!

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

Can't answer anything but the blog title. CP is undoubtedly fun because of how hard it is. :)

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

Yesn't. I like to do CP when I have no other choice except studying. I don't like routine. So I often end up doing random stuff all the time. Like watching movies all day while I have an exam tomorrow. When I try getting serious I often get depressed and fail even harder. So I try to avoid getting serious as much as possible. I often feel like leaving CP. And I do leave CP for 2 or 3 weeks often while only attending contests. After coming back, it feels much fresher. I think forcibly doing something isn't a good idea. Maybe life is too short to be a tryhard.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

Definitely!

I learned cp by interest at the beginning without any targets.

I enjoy cp everyday!

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

Loving the struggle is way to get ahead in any field. So, is CP painful sometimes? YES Is that good? DAMN RIGHT

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10 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

I quit it in despair

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