Hi codeforces!
I've decided that this summer I will train hard for ICPC. Last year I was a grey coder and didn't even make it on my university's team for regionals... but this year will be much different! I have now managed to become a blue coder, so I am making progress, however sometimes training can be hard and I feel unmotivated. That is why I want to know your ICPC story! How long and hard did you train before you made it to world finals? What was your schedule like? Did you have to overcome any obstacles? Perhaps you even won a medal, how did that feel? Anything you want to share to help me with my training I will appreciate. Maybe I'll see some of you at world finals someday soon :)
WoW an impressive rating graph!
thanks! ^_^
Good idea, is something like me, but in Brazil we have the sub-regional, and in the four years I attended consigui not even qualify for the regional, it's hard but I had other gains, I noticed my evolution. The problem is that we can never form competitive teams, I studied graphs, PD, mathematics, while others found it very difficult and not worth the effort. When I met good competitors, just not being very compatible in the discussions, which hurt us a lot. So this month I started training, I follow the book CP3 and contests the codeforces alone is difficult because the ICPC is competition team, I think the team training is important, especially if you want worldwide results. Sorry for my English ...
Of course if you are keen enough and very intelligent, you can qualify without teamwork, lol, I could not, but I've seen many cases ....
I think it is meaningless if it is not a team, maybe talking trash ... after all I could not, rs
But, above all,
Good training and good luck. :D
Your training sounds similar to mine, since I am also going through CP3 and trying to compete in as many codeforces rounds as possible. CP3 is a very good book and I have already learned so much in only a few chapters.
I agree with your point that training in teams is important for ICPC. Luckily at my university we have many people that are interested in competitive programming and I have many friends in those circles. But I will make sure to follow your advice and work hard in a team setting too.
I'll see you on the leaderboards :D
Last year(In 2014), I'm just a newbie in competitive programming. I'm so noob that sometimes I can't solve any problem at all on codeforces round. But I tried my best to train myself when mid 2014 came. I train mostly at UVA with a guidance from CP3 book and also at local online judge. Then I've heard stories of ICPC from my seniors, how cool and fun it was. I'm so excited about this so I decided to try it, even if my team fails getting to regional level. I form my team immidiately. But, you couldn't expect more from newborn team. In that months after the team formed, we never train together for competition. Mostly because we're really busy with our own homework. To make things worse, one of my member is really pessimistic and afraid when facing CP problem!!! Fortunately the other one is natural genius(he's the factor we got the ticket to ICPC regional). Then long story short, we could make our way to ICPC regional. But as you can expect, we couldn't make it to WF, hahaha. What could you expect? We are just newborn team from unheard university facing giants from national and international academic institution. Yeah, I'm a little bit disappointed at that time. What if my team train regularly? What if I'm devote my time more for practicing CP? But I throw away those unnecesarry things and look forward for another chance this year. So I'm starting anew and put some discipline to myself and my team. I'm usually solve 5 problems a day. And I train with my team once in a week. My advice for someone who have zero experience in CP and want to compete in ICPC is to never give up! You're not late to learn CP! Really, if you put your heart for this you could beat any team. Practice, practice, practice everyday!
I hope to match your dedication and see you at WF!!