It was not that I understood everything on the first day itself. When I read the article for the first time, I felt so scared that I ended up closing the article It was GFG article and I understood nothing from it "So this is the secret of becoming red coder for those who ask such such question" Hii guys, Welcome back to the channel. Today we are having Utkarsh Gupta, who was approached by Google for an interview and he successfully cracked it.. He is also a 7* coder on codechef and grandmaster on Codeforces and he comes under top 5 in India. So, you can see what top coder he is Now he is going to share his insights that how he started his competitive programming journey, why google approached him and the secret for becoming the red coder is also shared by him discussed in this video. So watch this video till the end Before that, please like the video and subscribe to the channel Nishant bhaiya - "So Utkarsh, if anyone want to start his competitive programming, so how should he start ?" means is it important to know DSA before CP or he can start his CP journey directly? Let's answer both of these question.. Competitive Programming is that in which we do programming competitively, so first most important thing for that is to know some programming knowledge Now how to learn programming? It is not that hard to learn any language. In college also, there is a course of 'Introduction of C' in the first semester, and if you know that, then you are good to go for CP and if you haven't done that, then I will suggest you to choose any language from C++, JAVA I will still prefer C++. The video will become to long if I start telling you the reason of choosing the C++ So, yeah you can learn any of the programming language first After that, whether you should do DSA or not? In my opinion, it is not compulsory to do DSA Let me explain you in this way - Suppose someone just started playing badminton, in the starting they are just asked to hold the racket and hit the shuttle and are not taught Smash, pull, toss, backend directly. CP is not about just studying, it is a skill which we have to learn so, for this you have to do handsome practice If you know any programming language, then it is not like that you have to learn a lot of DSA after that Infact, if you follow opposite path i.e. first practicing a little of CP and then start learning DSA, it will become more easy to you. I had started learning DSA very late but when I started learning article of Graphs, Trees in 15-30 minutes, it gives more benefits Now the question was how to start from the Day1 - If you have a knowledge of programming, then you can start with the problem solving section on Hackerrank, because it has easy level of problems But if you are weak in programming, then you can start with Hackerrank 30 days of Code It will help you in brushing up your language part + problem solving skills too Now once you have achieved a good level, you can go to the problem set on Codeforces There you can sort the questions in difficulty order from easy to hard Try the first 10-20 questions It will help you in becoming familiar to the Codeforces interface. After this, you can keep on practicing and improving. You can start DSA too What you use to do with the question which you were not able to solve during the contest? From where you use to see its solution Don't try to jump higher in the beginning. Start with the easy problems. I also did the same. And when you get stuck, you can ask for help from your friend or senior or from anyone who is into CP You can also read editorials on Codeforces, or if it is a recent video, you can watch its explanation on Youtube. Even I also post explanation videos, you can check out that too. There are other youtubers like Second thread, Priyansh Aggarwal, etc So the conclusion is that just keep on practicing and when you get stuck somewhere, then see its solution on editorial or from anywhere you like and move ahead If you start feeling like you are getting stuck too much, then you can find another problem set which comprises of bit easy problems and then you can continue with that. After solving them, you can again come back to this section Means start learning levelwise, it will help in building your concepts as well as confidence If you will try to skip a level, you will get stuck a lot To all the viewers, Utkarsh was approached by Google, and he cracked the interview. He is going to be a SDE at Google first of all congratulations to you Utkarsh I would like to know how and why Google approached you Before moving forward, there is a message from today's video sponser Coding Ninjas 20% off link is in the description, do check it out if you want to purchase any course If you don't know about Coding Ninjas, it is one of the largest coding platform in India Here you get courses on Android dev, web dev, machine learning, java, python, C++..... The teachers here are graduates of IIT, Stanford and they have cracked the companies like Facebook and Amazon So the courses are really good I did my DSA course from here only, in my second year You get 200+ hint videos in C++ course If you get stuck somewhere then you can take help from these videos But if you are still stuck, then you also get TA support in which all your doubts are resolved within 2-3 hours So 20% off link is in the description, do check it out. Now let's move back to the video First thing, google have internal records and based on that they approach you They approach you if you have participated in any Coding competition conducted by them like CodeJam, Kickstart. Also if you have attended any of their conference, then also your chances increases So if you have good rank in these contests, for eg - I was in top 3 in 4 contests of this year. So if you are in top 100 or top 500 in these contests, then you can be approached by them You will get a mail asking for your resume or interview Once your interview is scheduled, does CP help after that? I got lots of messages on LinkedIn like, " I have an interview after 2 weeks, what should I study" But in my case, my interview was scheduled after 15 days and I was completely chilling while watching Netflix, attending cousin's engagement and didn't study anything and when I appeared for interview, I solved all questions because I had done CP Google don't ask OS, CS fundamentals, so I didn't study that too Also I didn't sit for Oncampus placements. In short, I didn't prepare for placements at all. This is how CP helped me If you have seen this video till now, then do share on your linkedIn, which part you like the most in this video. Take a screenshot and add it too Now let's move on to the next question You always say that any student who is in college, he/she should try CP once. Is there any specific reason for that? There are many things which we can do in college like playing football, making games, website making, etc etc But in that case you know what it is, For eg - I never did photography, But I know what photography is. But we can't say same for CP So anyone who has not even tried CP once, he has no idea what it is in actual Like in Football, I know how it is played and based on that I can decide whether I should play it or not, but this is not the case with CP. First I should try it to know about it and then I should decide whether I want to do it or not So if you are in college, you should try everything once, so that you don't regret later Especially if you are in your first or second year, then even if your 1 month gets wasted on this, then still you have plenty of time There is a risk in 4th year but not in 1st or 2nd year Right right, if you are in 1st year, then try everything like open source, CP and then do whatever you like the most It's not like that you should start doing CP, or open source if someone asks you to do. Nothing is waste of time if you will do it diligently it reminds of that line from 3 idiot -"Kabliyat ke peeche bhaago, kamyaabi jhap maarke tumahre peeche ayegi" So try anything like maching learning or development. Once you have achieved a good level, then companies themself will approach you Last question, how you feel after becoming grandmaster on Codeforces and 7* on Codechef because very few people are able to reach this level. How was this whole journey and what do you feel now? Those who know what is CP, they started respecting me more. Even if I do some random comment, people like it because they see that it is done by a red coder People are asking their doubts to me. Like I am still in college and someone is working somewhere from last 3 years, he asked me how to shift towards Software development field. I am like how do I know that? But this is the respect which I am getting Now the next question of journey. It consists of 2 parts 1- What kept on motivating me 2- How I did this The main source of my motivation was the appreciation which we get on achieving certain level. This pushes me to work more hard and go 1 step further Also I always tried to made my friend circle with those who are of my level or near to me in CP If you are below on CF and your friend is Gray, then you will feel that you have achieved a lot, but if they will also be blue, then it will push you to work more harder So this was a great source of motivation to me. I always kept my level's friends in my friend circle Now let's talk about how I reached here First of all, you need years of years if you want to be in top 5 in India I would say, I have devoted almost 2.5-3 years completely to CP It's not like that you have learnt any article and it's over. This way you won't move to further level Its like we have practiced so much, that even if someone is just telling the question like there is a tree and we are changing its weight and we have to find the minimum path, a picture starts taking shape in our mind and we come to know that it is a question from heavy light composition Normal people find it too difficult. I think hardly 2-3 people would be knowing this in India But it is so obvious to me that I come to know about its solution immediately because I have studied them so nicely It's not that I understood it in the first go When I read its article for the first time, I got so scared that I closed it. It was an article on GFG and I understood nothing But then I read it again after 2-3 months, read it somewhere else too, watched some videos So now I have studied them so nicely that even after 10 years, if I forgets my friends name, then also I won't forget these concepts So this is a secret which people keeps on asking. No need mug it up or make notes of it, just understand it so nicely that you don't forget it even after trying This point was good that even if you will forget your friend's name, you won't forget these concepts It's like you don't remember your friend's name from LKG, but you remember ABC, Tables, etc So this should be the level of practice and understanding which you should have for any concept So Utkarsh have shared so many insights with us One more thing, Utkarsh also have a channel and he has started teaching DSA He has uploaded 3-4 lectures and will upload complete series You can think that one who himself know concepts so well, he can make you understand those concepts too So you can check out his channel, link is there in the description box. You can check it out Some people think that red coder study so many difficult things, we need not to do that But it is not the case, anyone can study these articles But to reach a level, you basic fundamentals should be strong, then only you will be able to reach that level Otherwise you won't understand that article So I feel this thing that mine or anyone who is at my level, there basics are very clear I have made a video on recursion and there you can check out the comments. I have explained there how to think about recursion and people have commented that they came to know about this for the first time This is the reason that I am able to reach this level because I understood this trick of recursion at an early stage and it helped me at every stage So I will teach in such a way, that all your basics will be cleared Recursion is such a thing, if you understood it completely then you will not face any difficulty in studying other concepts You will be done with Graph, DP, tree etc Recursion is very much important, so you can check out the video Thank you so much Utkarsh for taking you time. It was so nice to talk to you Utkarsh - Rather I should say thanks to you, because this will boost up my channel Ok then bye, see you By thanks So if you have watched video till now, then like it and subscribe to the channel if you haven't done it yet You can check out the channel of Utkarsh. Will see you in the next one, till then, Bye
