my leetcode journey

POV: me at a coding interview:

ok but fr tho what is leetcode?

Leetcode is a website that has a bunch of coding problems that you can solve in a variety of languages. It's a great way to practice coding and prepare for coding interviews.

…

but you already know that, so let’s get into my journey with it.

Data Structures and Algos (intense music plays)

So i like many other people started to learn data structures and algos in my second year of uni. I was taking a course called “Data Structures and Algorithms” (shocking, i know) and it was a lot of fun. I learned about a bunch of different data structures and algorithms and how to implement them in Lisp. I also learned about Big O notation and how to analyze the time and space complexity of my code.

But from that course I did not take away as much as I wanted to learn, despite doing well in the course i found myself still struggling at answering many leetcode problems even the easy ones. I realized that I needed to practice more and that's when I started my leetcode journey.

Scrolling endlessly through the internet trying to find someway to go about learning the material effectively, i found a bunch of different resources that I used to help me learn. I’ll list them below:

I mainly opted to follow along the roadmap layed out in Neetcode’s website, i started with easier concepts to build a solid foundation and then moved on to more difficult concepts. I also used the Blind 75 list to help me practice the most common interview questions. I found that the Blind 75 list was a great way to practice the most common interview questions and it helped me get a better understanding of the material. I also used Abdul Bari’s videos to help me understand the material better. I found that his videos were very helpful and he explained the material in a way that was easy to understand.

Before I knew it I went from a low 20 solved Leetcode problems to reaching nearly 100 over the course of two weeks, and this was a snail pace compared to some people who were solving 10+ problems a day. I was proud of my progress and I was happy that I was able to learn so much in such a short amount of time. Before I knew it i was reaching a point where LeetCode problems became enjoyable to solve and attempting to solve new ones gave a dopamine rush. I was hooked.

My Leetcode Stats

Hopefully by the time you are seeing this, it is at a respectable amount. I’ll be sure to update here as I go along.