Still remember at the beginning of last year, when I finished learning data structure and C++, I bagan to solve problems on leetcode.

In a chance, I found the contest page. It took me about one hour to solve the first question. Since then, I thought I should pratice more.

Where should I start? I began to practice questions in "Top 100 Liked Questions" and "Top Interview Questions" list. It took me several months to finish the lists. However, I thought it was worth the time, especially for the beginners.

After solved most of the questions in those two lists (about 200 questions in total), my contest rating reached 1700. I could solved 2-3 questions at most of the time!

The time came to November, I have solved about 400 questions. To practice harder, I also participate in codeforces contest. At that time, I found I could solve first 3 questions in contest faster than before. Everytime when contest ended, I would learn from the top participants' code and solutions posted in discussion. It really helpful to learn others' initition and code style! (I would like to give special thanks to @lee215. Really learned a lot from him!)

Now, my rating is 2163 and finally get Guardian badge. It is really glad to see the progress I made. Cannot believe last year I was struggling in "two sum" and now I could sometimes ak contest quesions.

There is still a long way to go. Hope my learning process is helpful! Feel free to ask me any quesions.

Update 7/14/2021:

Thanks Leetcode for the reward! Click here to see the intersection of "Top 100 Liked Questions" and "Top Interview Questions" list. Strongly recommend to do this first!