T1duS's blog

IOI Training for Indian Aspirants (UFDS Mentoring 2022)
By T1duS, history, 3 years ago, In English

Hey all!

We hope you're doing well. Like last year, we're again looking to give back a little to the competitive programming community, in the form of mentorship. This mentorship is completely free. We're hoping to help aspiring competitive programmers do well at the ZCO, INOI and IOITC, and hopefully even represent India at the IOI!

We're setting up another Discord server, to mentor people trying out for the ZCO, INOI and IOITC. Last year, we had 16 people from our server qualify for IOITC. This time, there's a larger limit on the total number of people we can take, as we have many more mentors. However, we're trying to focus more on olympiad preparation this year. You're still welcome to apply if you think you'd benefit from Olympiad training but are ineligible for INOI.

We're also in the process of developing a resource similar to the USACO Guide, in order to help us organise our teaching better. Do note that we teach all the topics within the INOI syllabus, and also teach topics which can appear at IOITC and IOI.

Like last year, if you join the program, we'll help you by:

  • Compiling useful practice problem sets to introduce you to a variety of different techniques
  • Selecting problems to practice with
  • Providing hints to solve problems in practice
  • Discussing problems after a contest
  • Recommending similar problems (if you’d like to reinforce a trick/observation)
  • Providing debugging assistance
  • Finding tutorials for classical techniques
  • Hosting sessions to teach/discuss classical techniques (we now have a list of topics we'd like to cover in order, but we're usually also happy to teach other things as necessary)
  • Hosting sessions to teach/discuss specific problems

If you think you'd benefit from mentorship, feel free to apply at our form here. We'll get back to you within a couple of weeks with a server invite link. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me with a message, or leave a comment here. The form will close on the 9th of July, 2021 at 12pm IST.

If you'd like to become a mentor (preferably with ZCO/INOI/IOITC experience), please also reach out to me(or socho) — we'd be glad to have you on board!

Thank you!

The current set of mentors is:

Me
socho
shiven
sahil_k
b23v
astoria
Aggu_01000101
ScarletS
kimbj0709
smjleo

Note: I would like to apologize for the name. It wasn't my choice. Ofcourse, DSU >> UFDS

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Comments Comments (23)
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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +63 Vote: I do not like it

I'm looking forward to helping out at the DSU Mentoring 2022!

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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +60 Vote: I do not like it

Count me in too (as a mentor).

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3 years ago, # |
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Is there a selection through the forms? As I am pretty new. I registered 3 weeks ago with zero knowledge of competitive programming and going to give my first contest today. So Do you chose to train only those who have a good rating and high experience or anyone like me as well?

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    You are very welcome to apply and most probably will be selected :). There is no condition for good rating and high experience

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    As someone who was in the server last year, I can say that there is no lower bound for you to be selected in terms of your rating or experience. All that matters is that you are willing to put in work towards your CP goals.

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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

I should have started CP in school but sadly I'm in college now :(. Can I still fill the form?

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -16 Vote: I do not like it

    You are not eligible for ioi!

    It's clearly mentioned in the blog it's for ioi aspirants.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +18 Vote: I do not like it

      You're still welcome to apply if you think you'd benefit from Olympiad training but are ineligible for INOI. I was asking after reading this line in the blog.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

    Yep, just select the 'Not in school' option on the form.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +26 Vote: I do not like it

We have a website now!

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

I have a couple of questions:

  1. Just making sure, I'm allowed to join even if I'm not eligible for the Indian IOI team (however I'm eligible for the US one), right?
  2. Is there limited registration? If so, how would you pick who to mentor?
  3. When you say "mentorship," what does that entail? Are people matched to mentors or will it just be a general, smaller server for CP discussion (with the mentors being active).
  4. How'd you pick the name? Did someone just want to popularize the name UFDS? :P (this comment was made by the DSU gang)
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

Have you sent back the mails :( cause i haven't received...

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

We'll send out mails to selected participants in 2 days.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

If I did not receive a mail till now, does it mean I have been rejected? I had applied on the first day, I really hoped to get selected :) Never mind! All the best for your project!

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3 years ago, # |
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why didn't I notice this blog previously....missed another opportunity, like INOI may be way out of my league but could have learnt something! :(

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    You can still apply

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
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      Hey, the google form says the deadline has passed, could you please check on it.

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