Priyansh Agarwal

ICPC World Finals it is...

It gives me immense pleasure to share with you all that after securing Rank 14 in the Asia West Continent Finals, our team PGP from IIIT Delhi has qualified for the ICPC World Finals to be held in Egypt in November this year.

I still remember when I was in 1st semester we were told that a team from IIIT Delhi had gone to the ICPC world finals and everyone was in awe after hearing that. I am feeling so blessed right now. There is no better feeling than knowing that you will be remembered for something in college after you graduate. This would be the 3rd WF appearance of a team from IIITD.

I won't make this a gyaan-wala post but I just want to say that no placement or internship offer can come anywhere close to the satisfaction this gives you as a competitive programmer. I didn't quit CP after I became a candidate master and continued to grind for 2 more years and I don't regret even a single second spent on CP.

This wouldn't have been possible without all the amazing people that have helped me throughout these 3 years of my CP journey by guiding me and being the source of motivation.
College seniors from Foobar: Madhav, Yatin, Tanmay, Vrinda.
Creators for their amazing content: Kartik, Errichto, Utkarsh, Raj
People from the TLE Eliminators team for making sure I never felt like I was doing CP alone.

The team: Parth, Gaurav, and me.

#competitiveprogramming #icpc #codeforces #codechef #worldfinals #algorithms #datastructures #experience #worldfinals #egypt

It gives me immense pleasure to share with you all that our team PGP from IIIT Delhi has qualified for ICPC - International Collegiate Programming Contest Asia West Continent Finals this year after securing India Rank 7 in Kanpur Regionals and India Rank 28 in Amritapuri Regionals.

It was always a dream since I joined college, to make it to ICPC Regionals one day. Well, we not only qualified for the Regionals but also Continent Finals this time and it feels absolutely amazing. I hope we perform our best and make our college proud.

Having been in competitive programming for the last 3 years, I can tell you that there were multiple instances where I felt like quitting. I don't know how I kept going. I was stuck on Candidate Master for 2 full years and only became a Master just before the Regionals. I hope the budding competitive programmers use this post as a way to keep themselves motivated whenever they feel disheartened. You've got this. Keep going.

I will be honest, I am not sure if I will be able to find time to continue CP after college. This might be the last major CP contest of this long and happy journey, now that I just have 5-6 more months to go before I graduate.

#competitiveprogramming #icpc #asiawest #finals #journey #india #iiitdelhi

It was a fun experience participating in Google Kick Start Round D today...
Secured Global Rank 71 and India Rank 18.

Wasn't very active in Competitive Programming in the last 2 months due to my Internship. Felt really good attempting an official contest after so long.

If we exclude my performance in Round A (where I got Global Rank 6 and India Rank 1), this is my best rank in Kick Start so far.

What's interesting is that I wasn't even keeping track of the Kick Start rounds after I missed Round C but my younger brother was. He ends up calling me multiple times in the morning to remind me about the round and I got up just 30 seconds before the start time xD.

#google #competitiveprogramming #datastructures #algorithms #experience #problemsolving #kickstart

Some #motivation for you...

Google Kick Start 2021 is a wrap.

I secured a 3 digit rank in all the rounds this year and saw significant improvements in my coding speed and logic building compared to last year when almost all my ranks were 4 digits.

The best part is that I completely solved Round B this year after clutching Problem D with just 5 minutes remaining in the contest.

Hoping to get some 2 digit ranks too next year when I come back stronger with much more experience, faster speed and better problem solving skills.

#competitiveprogramming #algorithms #datastructures #google #kickstart #learning #contests #achievement #experience

So, you got an internship at your dream company? Here are 7 non obvious tips for you to ace that internship. I followed some of these and learnt some others along the way during my internship at Goldman Sachs last year which converted to a PPO.

1️⃣Don't assume, clarify all your doubts beforehand.
Whenever you're given a task, make sure you completely understand the requirements before you start working on it. It is better to clarify your silliest doubts instead of doing something unintended.

2️⃣Ask doubts to the right people.
A lot of times you will feel blocked in your task, start by asking your first POC (your mentor/buddy) and other people (interns or FTEs) who are working on similar stuff. Only go to your manager when you've exhausted all other options.

3️⃣Avoid overcommitting.
In most teams, interns are asked to set their own deadlines for tasks. Whenever given that option, it is alright to have some buffer for yourself. Saves you from completely missing the deadline or pulling off all nighters in the last few days.

4️⃣Have a say in decisions.
Don't just sit back, get involved in discussions and make your voice heard. Be absolutely confident when you do that. No, you're not just an intern. Your input and perspective matter. This is highly valued especially in software engineering and finance.

5️⃣Ask for regular feedback.
Seek input from your manager, mentor every once in a while. Ask for feedback and act on it. You don't have to do that very formally, just asking casually over lunch would also be fine. Also, don't over do it, seek feedback after every quarter maybe.

6️⃣Document your work.
Keeping a record of your tasks, challenges, and contribution is essential. It provides valuable material for future interviews and performance evaluations. Most internships have a final presentation so this would really help there.

7️⃣Don't constantly bug your team with PPO-related questions.
Let your team members know that you're interested in a full time role but don't constantly ask them about PPO. Let your work speak for itself. Focus on learning more than PPO and don't annoy your manager for god's sake.

⭐️Bonus Tip: Not getting a PPO is not the end of the world. Just focus on learning, networking, and gaining experience during your internship. Getting a PPO is not just dependent on your performance but also the company's budget so don't take unnecessary stress.

PS: Below is a candid from the time I was interning at GS.

#internships #intern #tips #ppo #softwareengineering #work #experience

Here are the top 8 mistakes that I have seen most competitive programmers make in their CP journey.

Which of these mistakes have you made in your journey?

#competitiveprogramming #mistakes

A lot of people start competitive programming out of FOMO. But I am pretty sure if you know the benefits of it, you won't need any external motivation to convince yourself to start.

Here is a list of topics you should master based on your rating on Codeforces.

1. Less than 1000 rated
- A programming language
- Time and Space complexity
- Basic Number Theory - modular arithmetic, primes, etc
- Basics of Searching and Sorting
- Basics of C++ STL - vectors, pairs, maps, sets
- Basics of Bit Manipulation
- Making a CP template and Debugging

2. 1000 to 1200 rated
- Recursion
- Advanced Bit Manipulation
- Intermediate Number Theory - sieve, euclidean algo, exponentiation, etc
- Advanced C++ STL - functions like lower bound, upper bound, etc
- Prefix Sums

3. 1200 to 1400 rated
- Advanced Binary Search
- Interactive Problems
- 2 Pointers, Sliding Window
- Advanced Number Theory - mod inverse, permutation, combination, probability, expectation, Fermat's theorem
- Standard Greedy Algorithms
- Comfortable in standard DP

4. 1400 to 1700 rated
- Little comfortable in non standard DP
- Basics of Trees , Binary Lifting, DP on Trees, lots of DFS problems
- Basics of Graphs, Shortest Path Algos, Disjoint Set Union, MSTs
- String Hashing
- Segment Trees
- Non Standard Greedy

5. 1700 to 1900 rated
- Very comfortable in unseen DP problems
- Euler Tour, Subtree Queries, Adv DP on Trees
- Directed Graphs, DP on Graphs, SCC
- Lazy Propagation, Fenwick Trees, Sparse Table
- Tries, DP on Tries
- Very comfortable in Non standard greedy

In case you're interested in learning competitive programming, you can also explore TLE Eliminators. We have divided the entire curriculum into 4 levels and you can choose to start from a level based on your current experience in CP.

Our 9th batch is coming up on 5th December. You can sign up for a reminder on the website to not miss it. We keep limited slots to provide the best quality to each and every individual who signs up.

Delighted to share with you all that I secured a global rank of 230 (India Rank 96) among 19000 other programmers in the Google Kickstart 2021 Round A. Much better performance compared to last year, where my best rank, among all Kickstart rounds, was 295.

A tip for Kickstart rounds: While doing a problem if you can't come up with an algorithm that solves all the subtasks, it is better to code up the smaller subtasks quickly and then continue thinking about the bigger subtasks instead of wasting all the time thinking about the whole problem. This will be beneficial if you are not able to solve that complete problem in the end as the overall time penalty will be very less.

You can check also out my screencast for this round. Link: https://lnkd.in/dbdVpbt

I have also made a dedicated editorial video for problems A, B, C of this round. Link: https://lnkd.in/dh8eH9b

#google #india #competitiveprogramming #datastructures #algorithms #problemsolving #coding #kickstart2021 #editorial

The recession is here, there is no denying that. Should you stop coding or preparing for technical interviews altogether?

Let me tell you about my experience first...
People ask me how was I able to manage all of the things I have done with the workload at my college - IIIT Delhi. I can give you all the gyaan but the truth is I was only able to find time for my side hustles because of the covid-lockdown which made everything go online. Yes, there are other things like prioritising stuff that helped me but with the kind of workload IIIT Delhi has it is almost impossible to do so many things now unless you completely stop caring about academics.

What happens in times like covid, recession, etc is that most people just lose hope and stop working towards their goals thinking that this is the end of the world. This is exactly the time when you must grind without caring about the results because everyone around you is just assuming that there can be nothing worse than this. People who grind in times like these tend to outperform everyone around them.

It is all about making the most out of every single opportunity that life presents you with. Yes, the recession is here but it is not even close to what happened in 2008. Guess what, the world recovered from that and it will recover from this recession too. Now, ask yourself one thing, when everything becomes normal do you still want to be unprepared or do you want to work hard right now and be in a position to grab every opportunity that comes for you in future.

#coding #recession #motivation #interviews #tech #datastructures #algorithms #competitiveprogramming #experience