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Competitive programming is useless

kislayverma.com

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Re: Competitive programming is useless

#41

Post by wpasc »

junon wrote: post #7
kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #4

> Assuming for a minute that students from lesser tier colleges are less smart (possibly untrue but again a discussion for another day) Let’s discuss it now: they are NOT ‘less smart.’

Yeah, this. My home state's college's CS program boasted it was one of the best in the northwest. My friends that went through it constantly had to ask me to explain simple stuff to them because the professor's assignments were wrong or confusing. Compare that to our local community college, which seemed to have a much more well-rounded course and taught the fundamentals in a way that made much more sense. Anecdotal…

Not to nitpick your Uber anecdote, but the "candidates in the same age group came from a non-college/-university background and usually outshone those who did" probably had to have some strong non-university background like significant practical experience in projects or work to pass the resume filter process to make their way to your interview stage. So there's probably a great deal of selection bias in that specific example.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#42

Post by MisterTea »

8589934591 wrote: post #9
junon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this. My home state's college's CS program boasted it was one of the best in the northwest. My friends that went through it constantly had to ask me to explain simple stuff to them because the professor's assignments were wrong or confusing. Compare that to our local community college, which seemed to have a much more well-rounded course and taught the fundamentals in a way that made much more sense. Anecdotal…

I'm someone outside USA. Can you clarify your comparison between state vs community?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_colleges_in_the_Unit...

In the USA Community College can mean a private or publicly funded 2 year university, college or trade school. A state university is pubicly funded and can be a community colleges. See the New York State SUNY system for an example. There is also the New York City CUNY system which is publicly funded by the city at the local level.

I went to "Queensborough Community College", a CUNY university in NYC. So I tend to define "community college" as a publicly funded 2 year university/college.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#43

Post by synergy20 »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #33
3pt14159 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any one student may happen to be a genius at a lower tier school, but comparing population averages, it's pretty clear that smarter pupils go to MIT or Harvard than less prestigious universities and I don't see why this would be controversial. Some people are smarter than others. It doesn't make them more valuable as human beings, but there are real differences in the world.

Going to MIT and Harvard is more about ambition than "smarts" is my thought on it. On average smarter, but that more has to do with population size than anything. If you limit the comparison to the top N from state schools so that you were looking at the same population size, state schools would end up out in front on the "smarts" scale but lose on the "ambition" scale.

It's hard to justify the extra 200K for MIT CS degree tuition vs many public in-state universities' CS major.

My take is, if you are interested in academic research and theory study, going to ivy leagues makes sense, or if you're into law/business/medical majors, school ranking matters a lot. For a high paid IT job at undergraduate degree level, ivy league makes absolutely no sense, the extra $200K tuition is also really just a net loss.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#44

Post by sage76 »

Years ago I managed to clear super competitive algo/DS rounds for a big firm and then failed spectacularly at the job, because I had no idea what they were talking about half the time the projects were being discussed.

I wish they had just asked more pertinent questions and saved everyone some time and me the humiliation.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#45

Post by gmadsen »

ctvo wrote: post #39
gmadsen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while I agree, that very smart children can be victims of their childhoods, not everyone can prep their way into MIT. that is why Harvard and Yale are more prestigious, its more associated with the powerful, not purely the most academically inclined. To be clear I grew up fairly poor myself with no support system, but not that bad with violence, just trailer park poor, you can tell smart children at a very young age,…

> my point is that MIT will have a higher percentage of mathematically gifted students, because it isn't something that can be prepped for. What are you talking about? The requirements to get into MIT are not mathematical genius. It's above average quantitative skills. And you can prep for the standardize math requirements quite easily. All of my high school friends did, and some managed to get into MIT.

you obviously have a pretty strong bias. I didn't say its a requirement, I said they would have a higher percentage of gifted students.

Also the requirements are not "above average", a math SAT of 750 is in the 95% percentile of SAT takers, which is already below average for MIT. Even then, the "average" student isn't even taking a college readiness test. You are grossly overestimating what average is.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#46

Post by wpasc »

synergy20 wrote: post #38
malfist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a lot of hubris from the author. I don't think anyone out of college for more than a few years thinks the "tier" of college you went to is the ultimate arbiter of how competent you are and can ever achieve.

Believe it or not, _statistically_ speaking, top tier STEM schools do have way more smarter students per my experience. Prestigious Universities earned their fame for the most part.

Idk about the "Prestigious Universities earned their fame for the most part" when implying that then causes their students to become way smarter.

IMO to compete in the "college admissions race", smart/motivated students will often compete like crazy to get into the prestigious university system. So because so many very smart/motivated students compete to get into the programs, the prestigious universities get their pick of top tier students who will end up graduating who could turn out to be smart/competent programmers regardless of the actually quality of the program.

I'm not saying these top schools have crap programs, I'd imagine they do have great programs as well, but I'd guess those same students would become good/competent programmers coming out of any program.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#47

Post by rfrey »

andreilys wrote: post #28
kemiller2002 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better prepared I would say. There are plenty of kids that don't get the opportunity to show how smart they are. They grow up in the projects, have to work nights to help their family, some have to join gangs to survive. You swap they're upbringing with someone who's parents got to spend 100k on their high school education, provide them the things like a car, so they don't have to ride the bus a hour to and from scho…

It ultimately comes down to nurture vs nature. My opinion is that nurture affects nature, so yes if we optimize childhood development it would naturally lead to better outcomes. However I do believe people have a “natural” ceiling based on genetics. Meaning that no matter how great your nurture environment is, you could never become a top NBA basketball player or a Nobel prize winner. Now I’m not saying MIT is either…

Although I wouldn't contest your opinion about "ceilings" etc, because I don't know much about it, I would contest that elite universities select from a pool that is above most people's top end. I suspect the average intelligence of Harvard, MIT, or Stanford students is higher than the national average but still within the first deviation - in other words, most people in the population who are interested in university are probably "smart enough" by nature to succeed at one of these schools.

Socioeconomic factors playing a role (even a majority role, in my opinion) in access to elite education isn't about $20 million gifts. It's about living in neighbourhoods that have good primary and secondary schools; it's about living around peers who think going to university and even elite universities is normal and achievable; it's about being able to afford "personal rounding" activities like organized sports or music lessons; it's about being rich enough to be able to afford to give volunteer hours.

This "privilege" doesn't make those people bad or invalidate how hard they worked, but we should avoid thinking their success is due to some innate, "natural" superiority like just being smarter.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#49

Post by 3pt14159 »

rfrey wrote: post #40
3pt14159 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any one student may happen to be a genius at a lower tier school, but comparing population averages, it's pretty clear that smarter pupils go to MIT or Harvard than less prestigious universities and I don't see why this would be controversial. Some people are smarter than others. It doesn't make them more valuable as human beings, but there are real differences in the world.

It's controversial because that assertion assumes that entrance to MIT, Harvard etc. is primarily based on IQ (or whatever other metric of "smartness" one uses). It is apparent that admission to these universities is based on many things other than IQ, and that IQ may in fact be a lesser component than other things, such as socioeconomic status (which leads to attending schools that prepare one for applying, being ab…

I didn't say there weren't other factors, there clearly are, but there are real differences in smarts between schools and to consider this controversial is something I think is more of a product of our present moment than something that people really deep down believe.

And I actually think I can speak to this with some amount of personal experience. I've been at both a lower tier college and a best-in-the-country university. When I was 11 I wanted to learn how to write software so I took courses nights, weekends and summers at the near by college until I was 14. I know how smart the class was and it was no where near as smart as the engineering students at the top tier university.

But that is ok! I think we overvalue intelligence in modern society, but to pretend that there are no differences is undervaluing the truth for the sake of political correctness or ideology.

Re: Competitive programming is useless

#50

Post by deltasixeight »

There needs to be science on this. Some way to quantitatively measure the performance of programmers who do competitive programming and to measure ones that don't.

Until then everyone will agree or disagree but some science will prove a definitive answer. It is very much worth doing such science given the prevalence of testing a programmer for such competitive skills and the fact that many consider such skills useless against the actual daily tasks of a programmer.

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