Hi everyone,
I'm new to Codeforces and programming in general. My name is Arshika, and I'm just starting to learn C and C++. I’m still figuring things out, and I’m not very confident yet, but I really want to improve.
I recently joined Codeforces and tried solving some problems, but I often get stuck or feel like I don’t know where to begin. I’d love some advice on:
What kind of beginner-friendly problems should I start with? How should I practice to improve my problem-solving skills? Is it okay to be slow at first? How do you stay motivated when you feel like you're not improving?
If you have any tips, resources, or just want to share your own beginner experience, I’d really appreciate it. I'm here to learn and grow, one step at a time.
Thanks for reading!
Start with whichever problems at whatever rating you find difficult but solvable/almost solvable. Spend around 10-15 minutes for each problem trying to figure out the solution, and if you can't figure it out in that timeframe don't be afraid to read the editorial — that's the only way you'll learn new ideas; most of us aren't able to come up with segtrees or other data structures/algos by ourselves. For motivation, I find it helps to join competitive programming discord servers. And yes, everybody's slow at first lol.
Do everything that a typical data structures course would require. Everything else is math.