Hello Leetcoders,
Today I reached officially solving 1000 leetcode problems( Easy 261, Medium 653, Hard86). For the past 9 months, I solved around 100 problems per month.
I was more focused on solving mediums.
I began to give contests in July 2023. I participated in 38 contests so far and my present rating is 1900+ and obtained the Knight badge last week. Now I can comfortably solve 3 problems in the contest.
For every 100 problems you solve, you can definitely find the change in the style of writing your code, your problem-solving skills, and figuring out edge cases. Here are some of the learnings that I would like to share from my learnings.
Do's:
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Gaining proficiency in new topics: If you are new to a topic the first step I would advise is to move towards its discuss section and look at the top 5 most voted articles. People write articles comprising of must do problems, useful templates, etc. Leetcode provides a beautiful feature to clone these lists. I guarantee that this is one of the best methods to practice.
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Maintain personalized lists: I maintained my personalized lists for topic-wise and some lists like not solved in contest, unsolved, etc which I can look at at a later point in time. Here are some good lists I marked.
- Must Do mediums: https://leetcode.com/list/rg6texq1
- NeetCode 150: https://leetcode.com/list/pu718mu2
- Sean Prasad List: https://leetcode.com/list/rspp2t87
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User Timer Effectively: A medium problem can be given around 40 minutes. Note the date and time you spent and the approach you followed. If you are not able to solve mark it into an unsolved list and look after 2 weeks or a month.
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Use the discussion tab effectively: The Leetcode discuss section is a gold mine where people share their experiences, approaches, edge-testcases etc. I have personally benefited from it. Try to learn as many possible approaches from it. One such example is using @lru_cache() in Python. This makes you skip in writing the memorization part of many Dp problems.
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Attend Contest Regularly: Attempt the Weekly and Biweekly contests regularly. This makes you learn how to solve problems under pressure and helps during the online assessment and interviews. The adrenalin rush you experience will give you fruitful results after. Maintain a list of "not solved in contest" and add all the questions you are not able to solve and make sure you solve before the next contest.
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Select random Problems: After getting comfortable with all the topics start selecting random problems (this feature is already available in leetcode) and solve. Now leetcode has removed the dislike feature but you can use this link to know the dislike count and skip if it has more dislikes.
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Maintain your personalized notes: Maintain your personalized notes for each topic and important question numbers of important leetcode problems of that topic. It will be helpful whenever you want to revise a topic.
Dont's:
- Don't chase for streaks: Don't run behind streaks. If you are not able to solve the POTD leave it, you can surely solve it at a later point in the journey.
- Don't look at hints/editorial until you give your genuine efforts: The pleasure that gets on solving a problem on your own is much greater. So refrain yourself from looking at hints until you give a decent amount of time and effort towards the problem.
I now need to master advance topics like Fenwick trees, Segment Tree, Bitmasking Dp and concentrate more on solving hard problems.
Feel free to connect over LinkedIn .
Presently I am navigating a career gap and looking for opportunities after upskilling. I am reaching out to this community with the hope that you may have insights, advice, or connections that could help me in my job search. If you are aware of any relevant job opportunities, or if you can offer guidance on breaking into the industry, I would be immensely grateful for your support.
If you have any information or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn .Your support means a lot to me, and I am truly grateful for any assistance you can provide.