You know, we are very similar. I live in Eastern Europe too and my goal is to qualify for IOI.
I started my journey 6 months ago and I’ve been training really hard, solving 4-6 hours a day. I don’t know if I can pull it off, because in my country contestants are pretty advanced and I only started not a long time ago. I have tried IATI qualifications this year but I wasn’t even able to qualify among 16
But still, even if I won’t be able to qualify for IOI or some other international olympiads, there is also ICPC, still a lot of fun in the future.
But I do CP because it’s really fun, and, well, I have nothing more to do. Competitive programming is just like a video game: you can’t solve a problem then you must get some score points in this particular area (knowledge) to be able to surpass yourself. And also you learn DSA so that during the competition you got some aces up your sleeve. And just the feeling of competition, of getting the AC in the last couple of minutes - it’s beautiful.
So I guess, I will stick to it for some time as I am really motivated to continue. Who knows what will happen in a year? Will I be able to qualify for IOI or will I be able to get 6-7*? Time will show. But what for sure, is that I am not wasting my time. (I would waste it on video games anyway)
Btw, I don’t reallly like CodeForces for some reason, so I only solve here. And I like to solve problems gradually, so I just solve every single problem here on the website from difficulty 0.
don’t think that it is solution of problem, We have to develop ourself to defeat any challenge, so work on skill , as time will passes you will be in stable and motivated position…
this is a good recipe for burnout. The human mind is powerful, in theory it is possible to defeat any challenge, but why would you want to do that?
Yes, you never want to quit half heartedly. You want to give important looking stuff your best try. But you don’t want to stick to a loosing horse, anything that makes you unhappy long term is not worth sticking to. If you need to quit cp, just do it. I did that like 3 times already.
Just wanted to give y’all an update on what’s been going on me life. The messages I received on here had emotional impact on me and I want to thank to every one of you that wrote a comment on this post.
Almost two years have passed since I decided to call it quits, but I made a decision to come back out of retirement for fun a couple months ago. I never got into a prestigious uni overseas, which I didn’t event try (I firmly believed IOI medal would be my only chance of getting into unis, so I didn’t bother spending my parents’ money to apply to 15-20 schools in the US). I don’t feel as bad about myself as I did back then though, which was a huge surprise to me, although I pretty much failed at my goal.
Back to the topic of programming, to my surprise, I quickly regained my level (at least on CodeChef and CodeForces), and for the first time ever became Master on CodeForces which remained one of the promises I made I never fulfilled during my high school days. Here I am two years later, having achieved everything I wanted in the competitive programming space (besides qualifying for the IOI and winning a medal, which will obviously remain a dream as I’m already well into uni). I regret quitting tbh and not trying to qualify for the IOI in my final year of high-school as I now realize I definitely had the potential but was too mentally weak. I hope some of you who are struggling as well see this as a motivation and a reminder to never quit, perhaps take a break, but trust the process.
Here’s a link to my CF profile for those interested in my rating journey: CF Profile
Next goal is regaining 6* on CodeChef and practicing for the IM title on CodeForces. Cheers!
