Hello CodeForces!

This is my first time writing a blog post so please hang on with me c:

I'm currently a student in US studying Computer Science/Engineering. I never focused much on programming like my fellow peers in the Uni I go to (some of them apparently did USACO or some form of olympiad), and I have this feeling that I'm falling back behind regardless of how hard I try in school. # Note that I do have some mathematics background, qualifying for AIME with a score of 9 (which isn't that amazing, but still something).

However, that feeling of falling behind is the reason I started doing CodeForces again (did a few competitions freshman yr), with a sole objective to become a better coder.

The problem is:

I'm able to solve first two problems in D2, but cannot seem to find solutions for the next few problems. However, the topics in C and D in D2 problem sets are topics that I'm relatively familiar with, but only after I read the editorial I understand how to apply these concepts to create an algorithm. I'm also having exceptional trouble with edge cases.

My current goal is to reach approximately 1500 by end of this year (maybe 1900 hehe). Is this too ambitious? And if so, how would you insanely smart people in Codeforces would approach this case where ur just simply not good enough to solve a problem?

Thanks for reading my rant and I would really appreciate it if y'all can give me some good insights and tips on what should I do to progress my journey of becoming a semi-proficient coder.

POST ROUND 997: CHAT I SOLVED 3 PROBLEMS OMG