How to Focus on Competitive Programming and Web Development Together?

I am 6 Star Coder!
I am 5 Star Coder! Can I crack SDE job by doing CP only?

But I don’t know about web development?

You have heard these lines from your friends….. or you are facing the same situation.

Learning new technology is always exciting and challenging at the same time. Adding new skills is always a Plus point for a candidate, and learning a most demanding technology would be the cherry on the cake. Even after being good at problem-solving or competitive programming, it is equally important for a candidate to have experience in projects and vice-versa to gain an advantage over other candidates. Companies do multiple interview rounds to check a candidate’s DSA and project knowledge.

Since Web Development is an ever-growing and interesting field to explore and has a large community, a candidate can make projects in it and there is no secret about how important are Problem-solving and logic-building skills. In this article, we will discuss how can you do Competitive Programming and Web Development together. But before directly jumping onto that let’s first discuss what is Competitive programming and Web Development.

What is Competitive Programming?

Competitive Programming is a competition between the community of coders, solving complex algorithmic problems in a limited amount of time and based on that they will be graded. Programmers do competitive programming to increase their problem-solving skills. Competitive Contests are hosted by many websites like GeeksForGeeks, CodeForces, and CodeChef, where highly skilled coders participate and got ranked among the participants after solving the complex algorithmic questions in a limited time.

Competitive Programming will help programmers to practice data structures and algorithms. Also, almost every MNCs check the problem-solving skills of candidates before hiring them and they conduct the coding test which is similar to competitive programming and there is at least 1 coding interview based on data structures and algorithm to check their Problem-solving skills.  

For more details, refer to the article – What is Competitive Programming?

What is Web Development?

In today’s world, everyone is well aware of websites, and the process of creating these websites is Known as web Development. It has 2 parts, front-end, and backend. To create a website different technologies and frameworks are used. Frontend is what users see and interact with and on the other hand, the backend is the logic behind the system, and using that data can be fetched from the database and sent to the front end.

Every business has its own websites and to maintain, scale, and add functionalities to them, web developers are needed. Web development can be used to solve real-world problems by creating amazing websites that can help society such as blog websites, and e-commerce websites. Also, it is a high-paying skill using which you can get a handsome amount of salary in the job.

For more details, refer to the article – What is Web Development?

Now let’s discuss why you should learn both CP and Web Development together.

Why Competitive Programming and Web Development Together?

If you are starting or already good at competitive programming or doing Web development, you should do both because it has several advantages, so let’s discuss some of them and find out why you should do both:

1. High-Paying Jobs: Every company nowadays is looking for ideal and experienced candidates having good problem-solving skills and some project experience or internships, so as a fresher you should be good at both problem-solving skills and should have good real-life-based live projects in your resume. That is why you should have knowledge of both CP and web Development. Because if you want good pay then you should provide great skills or services to the employer.
2. Portfolio Diversity: Doing both will help you build a good and diversified portfolio. It will help you get your resume shortlisted over other candidates. Let’s say you have done only one thing, so if you have done only CP, the interviewer may reject your resume because you don’t have practical knowledge, and if you have done only Development they can reject you for not having problem-solving skills. So having a balance and exposure to both will give you the advantage.
3. Full Stack Development: If you want to be a full stack developer then you should have knowledge of the backend and in there, you have to write logic to optimize the code that will lead to cost reduction, if you have done competitive programming then it will help you build great logics because that is what competitive Programming is all about.
4. Wide range of Skills: When you have different skills then it is easy to collaborate with different teams and it will increase your learning agility and boost your confidence, also it will create your demand in the market. If you know front-end and are a good Competitive Programmer then it is easy for you to catch up while learning back-end technologies due to good logic building in CP.

You can use these skills more effectively and efficiently whenever necessary and your capabilities of doing things will increase. When you know why you should learn both, Now it’s time to see How to do it effectively.

How to Focus on CP and Web Development Together?

Implementing both requires a balanced and structured approach to learning a practical application. Here are some of the tips using which you can effectively learn and practice both Competitive programming and web Development together.

1. Start With Basics: You can start with the basics technologies in both fields and steadily increase your speed with time after grasping a good command of the fundamentals. Learning both parallelly is easy once your fundamentals are good. One thing which is very much common in both are logic building and algorithm, using these you can solve complex coding problems in CP and implement difficult logic in a more optimal way in Web Development.
2. Define your Goal and Allocate time: Scheduling your time and making a balance according to your defined goal is very important, so create a roadmap for your tasks and goals and schedule your daily time for both competitive Programming and web Development and complete them in the allocated time.
3. Participate in Coding Contests, Hackathons, and GSoC: These are real-world experiences you should take while learning because they will enhance your productivity and you become familiar with real-life challenges and their solutions, which not only interest you about coding but give you opportunities while searching for a job.
4. Network and collaborate: Engage with the coding community, attend meetups, join online forums, and participate in hackathons or coding boot camps. Networking and collaborating with like-minded individuals will help you grow and gain valuable insights from experienced professionals.
5. Continuous learning, growth, and Persistence: Consistency is one of the important factors in both fields while learning to code because as you go deeper and learn new things it is very important to recall previous concepts and if you are consistent then it is very easy for you to learn advance and complex topics.

Both Competitive Programming and Web Development require consistency and hard work and by learning both things you can leverage your problem-solving skills to develop efficient and optimized web applications.

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Conclusion

To get a good placement or to create your demand in the industry it is crucial to keep updated with technology like web Development and to be good at problem-solving skills. Learning them together will give you exposure to Managing consistency and hard work will be the key to get success in this. It has many advantages like portfolio building and getting good jobs as we discussed above. Just remember a few things don’t mess up and take one step at a time according to your schedule. Some days you will feel out of place and get confused about concepts but remember with consistency you will get through it all.

Competitive Programming and Web Development Together FAQs

1. How to Do CP and Web Development Together?

You have to manage your time according to your schedule and set your goal accordingly. To learn CP and web Development them together you have to learn the basic fundamentals of each topics.

2. Is competitive programming useful for web development?

Competitive programming definitely has an upper edge while learning web development because it is easy to understand the logic and it will help you to optimize the code which will reduce the cost and save time.

3. Are 3 months enough for web development?

It is a subjective question and depends on the individual capacity of learning, giving time and consistency. But if you are consistent then definitely in 3 months you can grasp a good amount of needed knowledge about web Development, but web Development is very vast and continuous evolving technology which you can learn overtime.