A year ago, the Competitive Programming (CP) club at our college was a small, almost hidden community. At that time, only two of us actively participated in CP contests: I was a Pupil, and my friend was a Specialist. Fast forward to today, and our club has grown dramatically. We now proudly have five Experts among us, a testament to our collective effort and passion.

How did we achieve this transformation? It wasn’t magic; it was a combination of strategic initiatives and a supportive environment. We organized engaging events like Code UnCode (You can search about it on LinkedIn), which not only challenged the students in the college but also sparked their interest and excitement. After every Codeforces (CF) and CodeChef (CC) round, we hold Post Contest Discussions. These sessions have become a cornerstone of our community, where members can share their strategies, learn from each other, and collectively improve their skills.

But perhaps most importantly, we celebrated every achievement, no matter how small. After each contest, I made it a point to congratulate everyone who changed colors, marking their progress and dedication. As our club grew, keeping track of these changes became a challenge. So, I wrote a script to automate this process. You can find the script on GitHub. This script fetches the names and handles of all the people who have changed colors for the first time – becoming Experts, Candidate Masters, Masters, or Grandmasters after a given contest. We proudly share these achievements on our Discord Server, celebrating each milestone together.

I encourage everyone to promote CP culture in their colleges. The rewards are immense, both in terms of skill development and community building.

However, my script isn’t without its issues. Sometimes, it returns a None response when fetching user lists. It would be wonderful if a generative AI could automate sending congratulatory personalized emails, but I don’t have access to the email IDs linked to their CF account Any suggestions for resolving these issues or improving the script are welcome. Do use the script or even modify it to your liking for doing any kind of such work.

I’m also working on a version of the script for CodeChef, and I’ll keep everyone posted once it’s ready.

Let’s continue to foster a vibrant CP culture in our colleges and support each other in our programming journeys!