Striver's Graph Series: study plan and how long it takes
The take U forward playlist is 56 videos and 18.3 hours long. Here's how long it takes at different paces, a week-by-week schedule built from the real videos, and a planner that turns it into your own daily plan.
56 videos · 18.3 hours · take U forward
Striver's Graph Series on take U forward covers graphs from representation and BFS/DFS to topological sort, shortest paths, minimum spanning trees, disjoint sets, strongly connected components, bridges and articulation points. Every algorithm is taught through interview problems like rotten oranges, word ladder and alien dictionary.
Episodes are numbered G-1 to G-56 and are short enough to do two or three a day, with the problem solved yourself before you watch the solution.
Who it's for: Students preparing for placements and coding interviews who know basic recursion and arrays and want a complete graph course in C++ or Java.
How long does it take?
The full playlist is 18.3 hours across 56 videos. Here's roughly how many days that is at different daily watch times and speeds, counting video time only:
| Daily time | At 1x | At 1.5x | At 2x |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 min a day | 37 days | 25 days | 19 days |
| 1 h a day | 19 days | 13 days | 10 days |
| 2 h a day | 10 days | 7 days | 5 days |
Make your own schedule
The playlist link is already filled in. Press Plan, set how much time you have each day and your speed, and you'll get a day-by-day schedule with a finish date and a calendar file. It reads the live playlist, so new videos are included.
Week-by-week schedule
A sample plan at 1 hour a day and normal speed, using whole videos so none is split across days. That's 4 weeks in total. For a different pace, start date or speed, use the planner above.
Week 1Videos 1–19 · 5h 41m
Day 1 · 50m
- 1G-1. Introduction to Graph | Types | Different Conventions Used14m
- 2G-2. Graph Representation in C++ | Two Ways to Represent16m
- 3G-3. Graph Representation in Java | Two Ways to Represent13m
- 4G-4. What are Connected Components ?7m
Day 2 · 55m
- 5G-5. Breadth-First Search (BFS) | C++ and Java | Traversal Technique in Graphs20m
- 6G-6. Depth-First Search (DFS) | C++ and Java | Traversal Technique in Graphs20m
- 7G-7. Number of Provinces | C++ | Java | Connected Components15m
Day 3 · 46m
- 8G-8. Number of Islands | Number of Connected Components in Matrix | C++ | Java25m
- 9G-9. Flood Fill Algorithm | C++ | Java21m
Day 4 · 43m
- 10G-10. Rotten Oranges | C++ | Java23m
- 11G-11. Detect a Cycle in an Undirected Graph using BFS | C++ | Java20m
Day 5 · 40m
- 12G-12. Detect a Cycle in an Undirected Graph using DFS | C++ | Java19m
- 13G-13. Distance of nearest cell having 1 | 0/1 Matrix | C++ | Java20m
Day 6 · 57m
- 14G-14. Surrounded Regions | Replace O's with X's | C++ | Java23m
- 15G-15. Number of Enclaves | Multi-source BFS | C++ | Java16m
- 16G-16. Number of Distinct Islands | Constructive Thinking + DFS | C++ | Java18m
Day 7 · 51m
- 17G-17. Bipartite Graph | BFS | C++ | Java18m
- 18G-18. Bipartite Graph | DFS | C++ | Java15m
- 19G-19. Detect cycle in a directed graph using DFS | Java | C++17m
Week 2Videos 20–38 · 6h 8m
Day 8 · 57m
- 20G-20. Find Eventual Safe States - DFS24m
- 21G-21. Topological Sort Algorithm | DFS14m
- 22G-22. Kahn's Algorithm | Topological Sort Algorithm | BFS14m
- 23G-23. Detect a Cycle in Directed Graph | Topological Sort | Kahn's Algorithm | BFS6m
Day 9 · 49m
- 24G-24. Course Schedule I and II | Pre-requisite Tasks | Topological Sort12m
- 25G-25. Find Eventual Safe States - BFS - Topological Sort17m
- 26G-26. Alien Dictionary - Topological Sort21m
Day 10 · 43m
- 27G-27. Shortest Path in Directed Acyclic Graph - Topological Sort27m
- 28G-28. Shortest Path in Undirected Graph with Unit Weights17m
Day 11 · 54m
- 29G-29. Word Ladder - I | Shortest Paths28m
- 30G-30. Word Ladder - 2 | Shortest Paths26m
Day 12 · 59m
- 31G-31. Word Ladder - 2 | Optimised Approach for Leetcode24m
- 32G-32. Dijkstra's Algorithm - Using Priority Queue - C++ and Java - Part 123m
- 33G-33. Dijkstra's Algorithm - Using Set - Part 212m
Day 13 · 58m
- 34G-34. Dijkstra's Algorithm - Why PQ and not Q, Intuition, Time Complexity Derivation - Part 315m
- 35G-35. Print Shortest Path - Dijkstra's Algorithm19m
- 36G-36. Shortest Distance in a Binary Maze24m
Day 14 · 48m
- 37G-37. Path With Minimum Effort25m
- 38G-38. Cheapest Flights Within K Stops24m
Week 3Videos 39–54 · 5h 40m
Day 15 · 44m
- 39G-39. Minimum Multiplications to Reach End20m
- 40G-40. Number of Ways to Arrive at Destination24m
Day 16 · 58m
- 41G-41. Bellman Ford Algorithm28m
- 42G-42. Floyd Warshall Algorithm30m
Day 17 · 40m
- 43G-43. Find the City With the Smallest Number of Neighbours at a Threshold Distance13m
- 44G-44. Minimum Spanning Tree - Theory8m
- 45G-45. Prim's Algorithm - Minimum Spanning Tree - C++ and Java19m
Day 18 · 55m
- 46G-46. Disjoint Set | Union by Rank | Union by Size | Path Compression42m
- 47G-47. Kruskal's Algorithm - Minimum Spanning Tree - C++ and Java13m
Day 19 · 45m
- 48G-48. Number of Provinces - Disjoint Set8m
- 49G-49. Number of Operations to Make Network Connected - DSU15m
- 50G-50. Accounts Merge - DSU22m
Day 20 · 52m
- 51G-51. Number of Islands - II - Online Queries - DSU26m
- 52G-52. Making a Large Island - DSU26m
Day 21 · 47m
- 53G-53. Most Stones Removed with Same Row or Column - DSU24m
- 54G-54. Strongly Connected Components - Kosaraju's Algorithm23m
Week 4Videos 55–56 · 45m
Day 22 · 45m
- 55G-55. Bridges in Graph - Using Tarjan's Algorithm of time in and low time23m
- 56G-56. Articulation Point in Graph22m
Tips for finishing
- Do G-1 to G-25 (traversal, cycles, bipartite graphs and topological sort) before touching shortest paths. Everything after builds on them.
- The disjoint set videos (G-46 onwards) are worth a dedicated week; DSU problems show up in interviews more than people expect.