Benefits of Starting Competitive Programming in 2021 and How to Get Started ?

Competitive Programming is not a new trend among students,  its community and platforms have very skilled competitive programmers. Today there are many platforms where one can practice competitive programming. But there is always a doubt among many young college-goers that should they start competitive programming or not?

Competitive Programming : Benefits & How-To-Start Guide 2021

What is Competitive Programming?

To understand Competitive Programming or in short CP, firstly you need to understand the term 'Programming', Programming can be defined as writing a piece of code to perform some operation or task. When you solve some problems (it can be mathematical, logical, etc.) with the help of programming, it is referred to as problem-solving in coding, and when you do the same in competitive is known as CP. 

See what Wikipedia says about Competitive Programming.

Some Benefits: 

• There are pros and cons to everything but there are not any cons of CP, in fact you will get benefitted if you practice competitive programming. 
• The very important thing you learn with competitive coding are problem-solving skills, which are highly demanded. 
• Most of the companies or almost all used to have to their coding rounds in college campus placement if you are an engineering student. 
• Apart from the problem-solving skill, your logical ability also increases with CP.

Perks Of Being An Competitive Programmer:

• The very first perk is your profile on CP platforms will somehow help you in getting your job offers or internships in or after college.
• You will have a good logical ability in programming.
• You can share your achievements over social media & can join great communities.
• After all, you can show off your profile and badges achieved on the platforms.

How to get started?

• First thing first you need to start CP is a programming language, however, you can choose any but highly recommended ones are C, C++, and Java. 
• You have to learn and should have a stronghold on Data Structures and Algorithms.
• You should also have to maintain the logic to think about Brute Force Solutions.
• Try several online available platforms and participate in the contests to increase your abilities.

Where to start? : Some Popular Platforms

The very popular platform for absolute beginners is HackerRank. In HackerRank you can start your programming journey. HackerRank is an easy and beginner-friendly platform. Here you can start solving problems after choosing your language and it will gradually increase the difficulty of problems.

After having a good hand at HackerRank you can move to the CodeChef. CodeChef is a competitive platform, here you can participate in many ongoing contests. Contests often occur on day-to-day or weekly basis. You will get awarded with points and stars and with cool goodies also if you achieve the least rank.

There are more platforms like Codechef where you can participate in the contests.

CodeChef, Codeforces, TopCoder, HackerEarth are popular platforms for competitive programming, and ACM ICPC, Google CodeJam, Fb HackerCup are the most popular CP contests.

Check out this complete guide by GeeksforGeeks.

Conclusion: 

• In a nutshell, the point is that you should try Competitive Programming if you are in college. Competitive Programming not only enhances your logical ability but also develops problem-solving skills.
• Competitive Programming is the thing that will definitely cheer you up if you like that and you will enjoy the process of solving every problem.

Needful Articles :

From GeeksforGeeks.

From Codecademy.

Thanks for reading this article, if you have any further queries, suggestions or questions, feel free to comment down. 

Article Contributor- Hrishitosh Thakur