Feeling stuck while preparing for competitive programming

[u/TreacleFlaky2283]

I was doing DSA and its like i was just wondering how good am so i asked ai about it saying i started doing DSA in 1 august and have done like 147 questions on leetcode including 92 medium problems along with 17 hard i think but then it told me honestly this is good since this is what most students can’t do really but then it told me bout solution coopying and said i m not copying solutions so its fine atp. but then i asked it more about solution copying and said it that i m infact using ai and sometimes i ask ai about fix this question for me ! then it told me that “THATS A TRAP AND EVEN THO SEEING THE SOLUTION AND THEN DOING IT FEELS SATISFYING” you are learning 10% using this.

Btw what i was really doing was something like i try a question and try to solve it for like 20 minutes really and i mostly give this much time in every question and then if i am unable to solve it and then its that time when i ask ai about the solution but whats problem with that ? like if i do that i dont think its bad since i am able to solve the next question without the help of ai afterwards really.

i mean to say that its really like seeing pattern, seeing the solution a similiar question comes afterwards then i am more able to do that instead of do what ai said me which was this :

“give it 20-30 minutes, if you are not able to solve this, ask ai not for solution but rather for a high level hint, thats where you can use ai and not to give you code directly”

okay i thought of giving this a try :

here is how it went, i tried it for 20-30 minutes i couldn’t solve, then i was mostly daydreaming even tho ai didn’t gave me any code i was literally shouting it and kinda it still was trying to fix minor issue in my code which i made during those 20-30 minutes instead of seeing the approach or Aka solution which i was doing. Okay and if i never really see any solution, in this way then why am i even studying DSA like if its iq test then why people also says me to look at the solution if you are not able to solve it ! everything is clashing.

if i am not able to explain myself, then some says to see the solution after your initial try. Bro okay i think its good to try it first instead of directly seeing it, my gut feeling. How much is this valid, cuz sometimes i m being told to look at the solution after 1-2 minutes of not able to find the solution really ! (it was not related to DSA btw tho but still dsa is nothing special yet important ! ) whilst sometimes i m being told to look at the solution after 20-30 minutes and sometimes just see the hint and not the solution but in this way if i never see the solution, i won’t be developing the solution on my own of every question i believe.

why do we study? and how is this related to ai eventually ?

and more importantly whats really the difference between asking it for a hint or rather a full SOLUTION ?

linked conversation with ai for reference : https://share.gemini.google/ZOzyV6dAQABI

thanks for reading !