Hey there,

Two and a half years ago, I started doing CP, and it's a very fun and meaningful experience that I will cherish. But at some point, I just started growing tired of it (perhaps because I wasn't improving that much anymore), and I also realized that the computer science world is way larger than just CP.

So... what's after CP? What did you do after you "retired" from CP? Which area of CS did you explore?

I'm genuinely a bit lost and don't know what to do. For the past 6 months or so, I tried exploring stuff like Machine Learning, Computer Theory, and topics closer to theoretical CS, but felt like I wasn't making much progress without a teacher or a "partner" that could help me when I'm stuck (on that note, should I cold email university professors for research/learning opportunities?) I also don't know any stuff related to "developing" — I tried writing a chess engine in c++ and was also stuck, and I don't really know any of the programming languages that well.

For some context, I'm a high school rising senior living in the US. What should I do?

Thanks :)