advent of code 2025

the first time i heard about advent of code (aoc) was in 2024. at the time, i thought i had "some skin in the game" when it came to algorithms and problem-solving, after all, it was about my second year actively tackling problems on leetcode. the very first question i looked at was rather unusual. it shook a lot of my fundamentals and exposed how many gaps i still had in my programming language of choice.

that was my wake-up call: i needed to take problem-solving seriously for another year… maybe another… and another, and forever cos apparently we are life-long learners.

for that first run, i only managed to get through three days (repo here), because the end of the year was a particularly busy period & aoc was something i stumbled upon by chance, so i shelved it and decided to go back to basics in the coming year: books, daily problems, dsa speed track sessions (mainly for revision), answering people's questions and what nots.

an encouraging message i got during one of the speed track sessions

last year, i was fully geared up to tackle aoc again, and my plan was to use it as a way to learn a whole new language.

but, as we often discover, we don't always stick to our plans ee? when december arrived, i was ready for 25 days of back-to-back problem-solving, and then i noticed, yay! the creator had changed it to 12 days. because, let's be honest, 25 days during the holidays is not for the weak.

my plan was simple: solve at least part 1 by myself, and for "shege reasons", i could solve both parts 1 and 2 using python and c++. i tried to stick to the bare minimum, focusing on what progress meant to me at the time.

looking back, the girl who didn't know how to approach the first question last 2 years was now recognizing recursion and identifying what the base case and recursive case was, sweet!

the girl who wasn't comfortable with list comprehensions was writing them effortlessly incredible!

generally aoc really helped me improve in a few key areas: data cleaning, confidence in python, cementing a basic problem-solving approach (a think piece i plan to put out), and learning to pick up where you left off, no matter what.

takeaways:

• if you can't explain something to someone, you probably haven't internalized it fully.
• if you struggle with a concept, visualize it, cue the debuggers, and print statements.
• consistency doesn't have to be grand to be meaningful.
• practice, practice, practice. that's the only way to actually get better.
• when you make a promise to yourself, keep it.

looking ahead, i plan to make this my mini tradition, let's see how many languages i can tackle aoc in, or how long i can keep this ritual alive, haha.

completing at least part 1 for all the 12 days it's not much but it's honest work

p.s. day 12 tested me, and even things beyond me, but i also learned about polyomino tiling. eee!