How to use this newsletter to improve

This advice applies to Leetcode, Cracking the Coding Interview, AlgoExpert, and every other resource as well

Hello hello, my future tech giants,

For the first topic of Technique Tuesday, we will be talking about learning. Precisely, we will cover how to learn. This is something that I find most people do wrong. In this post, we will cover how exactly you should proceed to make sure you get the most out of this resource (or whatever resource you choose to use). This technique that all my students have used to great success. Let’s get right into it.

What People Get Wrong

Practicing a lot of questions is good. Probably one of the best things you can do to get better. No arguments from me there. However, to get the most out of the questions, you have to actually learn from them, instead of just “doing” them.

Want more details? Based on the people that reach out to me, this is something that a lot of people that reach out to me do. Drop a comment if it sounds like you. Pete decides to get good at Leetcode. He sets aside time to do Leetcode questions. When he opens the question, he struggles with it. After a while, he looks at the solution. He then moves on to another question. He continues to try and struggle, barely making any progress despite putting in the hours and doing his best. Don’t believe me? Check this LinkedIn message I got.

This is a well-accomplished professional with 17 years of experience. Bad prep practices will screw everyone.

What is Pete doing wrong? And how can he improve? It’s not Pete’s fault that he hasn’t been taught the correct way to self-study and use the resources available online. What is the correct way? Let’s talk about it now.

Pete’s Mistake

The mistake Pete is making is a simple one: he’s not allowing himself to learn from his own mistakes. What do I mean?

The way Pete approaches the questions, he can only get two responses as feedback, yes or no (whether he solved the question or not). This is fine if he's solving the question with no problems. But what happens when he fails?

He has no way of tracking where he's failing. That's a huge problem. Think back to when you were learning a new skill. Remember how you had the coach/instructor tell you how you were going wrong. Imagine how much worse your learning would have been if the coach just told you that you were doing something wrong, without telling you what you’re doing wrong. Now think of Pete and look at what he’s doing. Is he finding out what he’s doing wrong?

Improving Pete’s approach

Now that you know what not to do, let’s talk about the details of how you can approach the problems. More specifically, how you should structure your problem solving, to reap the most benefits, fail or succeed.

The first step is to read into the problem. Really really well. As you do, make notes. Do you notice what they are asking for? Were there any interesting things that stood out to you? What were you thinking as you looked at the problem? WRITE THIS DOWN.

Keep note of all of this as you attempt the problems. This is crucial (almost as important as your actual problem). All of this will provide you with valuable feedback.

Finally, we get to the solution. Regardless of whether you solved the question or not I want you to look into the solutions. Look at how they did it, where your solution diverged, the alternatives given etc etc.

Gabby was able to show great growth using this approach. This is our notes, 3 weeks into our work together.

All of this will provide you with a lot of valuable pointers as to where to focus on next (remember the types of ignorance discussed in the newsletter yesterday). The above picture is an example of the notes taken by my student Gabby. Using this approach, she saw great growth in her results. It also allowed me to look at her performance and direct my feedback/customize our plans according to her strengths and weaknesses. If you’re looking for my mentorship and custom planning, reach out to me on IG or LinkedIn.

Feedback from a subscriber who is currently at Microsoft. The phrasing and structure of the solutions in the newsletter are a huge hit.

This is also why the solutions in this newsletter are presented in detailed steps. Not only does it show you how to approach the problems in detailed steps, but it also helps you find out exactly where you went wrong. If you want a taste of the solutions, use the button below to get a 30-day free trial to the premium version of the newsletter.

If you want more details, on how you can approach your questions, check out my article, The 4 step method my students use to maximize Leetcode Problems and ace their FAANG Interviews. That goes into more detail about the process that so many of my students have great success with. Check it out, and get ready to ace your interviews.

Clearing some misconceptions

I want to clarify one thing before I peace out. This method will take time. Instead of doing 5 questions in a day, you will end up doing 10 questions in a week. That’s completely fine. As I’ve discovered many times, quality beats quantity. Learning from 3 questions well is much better than learning badly from 20 questions. Spending 1 hour playing your guitar and 1 hour critiquing your performance are much better than wasting 5 hours playing your guitar aimlessly.

Here the time is measured not in days but in questions solved.

Don’t take it to the other extreme either. You still need to put in the base level of effort. You won’t get good at the guitar if you never take the effort to play it. You will have to do the questions because doing a good number of questions will provide you with the feedback needed to tune your learning process. I will cover the weekly schedule you should follow to maximize your learnings without compromising your day-day life (we’re all busy people with lives outside of interview prep here). As a spoiler, the magic range is between 7-12 questions/week. The ideal breakdown and reasoning will be in the post next week.

And with that, I will bid you adieu my lovely readers. Make sure you implement this in practice. You will be shocked by the results. And when these work for you, make sure you send me a message about your experiences :).

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Happy Prep. I’ll see you at your dream job.

The most woke coding newsletter writer,

Devansh <3

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