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As a former "successful" mathlete (never did IMO or Putnam, but consistently made the top five in state competitions), I agree that competitions won't help you

As a former "successful" mathlete (never did IMO or Putnam, but consistently made the top five in state competitions), I agree that competitions won't help you develop mathematical maturity, but it is interesting how how they are viewed in the wider world. It's been a number of years since my math tournament days, but people are always very impressed if I mention that I won math competitions in middle and high school. It is odd to me, because I don't really care about my math medals anymore and I've since accomplished things that I value a lot more, but there you have it. Also, even though competitions won't help you develop as a mathematician, I still think it was a good experience for me to get out of school for a day and hang out with a bunch of other math nerds. That part of it was a lot more valuable than the competition itself.

bisby 10y ago
In high school, I participated in "WYSE - Academic Challenge" (Worlds Youth in Science/Engineering) which was test taking competitions for a variety of topics. You'd take 2 tests out of 7 subjects, and there were individual test prizes, and combined school/team prizes. I originally participated to hang out with other nerds, but wound up getting a few state competition medals in the computer science test. The multiple topic thing really helped cement my love for computer science/engineering. That was the most valuable part for me. I dont even know where my medals are even at anymore.
auganov 10y ago
I was running a BaaS startup for a bit. While researching our competition-to-be I remember finding out that Parse's Kevin Lacker is a 2x Putnam winner. Couldn't help but have instant respect for him and the whole company. Personally as a kid I was often "sent" to these competitions but never bothered to prepare for them at all. I stupidly assumed it was a pure IQ play. Now I regret not taking it seriously. Makes me have even more respect for people that do.
- delazeur 10y ago
  > Personally as a kid I was often "sent" to these competitions but never bothered to prepare for them at all. I stupidly assumed it was a pure IQ play. I think this is the biggest disconnect between perception and reality of intellectual competitions (debate, math, chess, whatever). In reality, they require just as much practice to succeed as any other sport.
squeaky-clean 10y ago
> Also, even though competitions won't help you develop as a mathematician, I still think it was a good experience for me to get out of school for a day and hang out with a bunch of other math nerds. That part of it was a lot more valuable than the competition itself. I haven't done math competitions, but I feel the same way about programming competitions. I don't think I'm a better programmer because of the competitions. But I do think spending 4 hours, 2-3 days a week in a room with other programmers who were also there voluntarily made me much better. It's not like I stopped focusing on my own projects or coursework and did this instead. It was just an additional 12 hours a week of practice and socializing. Some problems were hilariously artificial too. I still remember one, where 10-year-old Suzie had a lemonade stand and had been keeping track of her profits each day. You needed to find the 3 consecutive days in which she had made the most total profit. The catch? It needed to run in less than 1 second and the largest case could (which means it will) be n=9999999. (I may be off by an order of magnitude). Little Suzie had been running her lemonade for well over 27,000 years apparently, but would throw a tantrum if it took more than 1 second to compute her answer.
- jnbiche 10y ago
  > I haven't done math competitions, but I feel the same way about programming competitions. I don't think I'm a better programmer because of the competitions. While you may be correct with respect to actual day-to-day programming, I'm 100% sure that programming competitions make you a much stronger interviewer for typical software developer interviews. I've never competed in programming competitions, but I've seen the types of questions they ask, and many if not most of the interviews I've experienced recently use the exact same kinds of questions. And in some cases, even the exact same questions!
  - j0e1 10y ago
    That just makes me think that they are not doing interviews right either -- ranking based on how quickly you can whip up an algorithm for a tricky question.
    - 10y ago

bisby 10y ago

In high school, I participated in "WYSE - Academic Challenge" (Worlds Youth in Science/Engineering) which was test taking competitions for a variety of topics. You'd take 2 tests out of 7 subjects, and there were individual test prizes, and combined school/team prizes. I originally participated to hang out with other nerds, but wound up getting a few state competition medals in the computer science test. The multiple topic thing really helped cement my love for computer science/engineering. That was the most valuable part for me. I dont even know where my medals are even at anymore.

auganov 10y ago

I was running a BaaS startup for a bit. While researching our competition-to-be I remember finding out that Parse's Kevin Lacker is a 2x Putnam winner. Couldn't help but have instant respect for him and the whole company. Personally as a kid I was often "sent" to these competitions but never bothered to prepare for them at all. I stupidly assumed it was a pure IQ play. Now I regret not taking it seriously. Makes me have even more respect for people that do.

delazeur 10y ago
> Personally as a kid I was often "sent" to these competitions but never bothered to prepare for them at all. I stupidly assumed it was a pure IQ play. I think this is the biggest disconnect between perception and reality of intellectual competitions (debate, math, chess, whatever). In reality, they require just as much practice to succeed as any other sport.

squeaky-clean 10y ago

> Also, even though competitions won't help you develop as a mathematician, I still think it was a good experience for me to get out of school for a day and hang out with a bunch of other math nerds. That part of it was a lot more valuable than the competition itself. I haven't done math competitions, but I feel the same way about programming competitions. I don't think I'm a better programmer because of the competitions. But I do think spending 4 hours, 2-3 days a week in a room with other programmers who were also there voluntarily made me much better. It's not like I stopped focusing on my own projects or coursework and did this instead. It was just an additional 12 hours a week of practice and socializing. Some problems were hilariously artificial too. I still remember one, where 10-year-old Suzie had a lemonade stand and had been keeping track of her profits each day. You needed to find the 3 consecutive days in which she had made the most total profit. The catch? It needed to run in less than 1 second and the largest case could (which means it will) be n=9999999. (I may be off by an order of magnitude). Little Suzie had been running her lemonade for well over 27,000 years apparently, but would throw a tantrum if it took more than 1 second to compute her answer.

jnbiche 10y ago
> I haven't done math competitions, but I feel the same way about programming competitions. I don't think I'm a better programmer because of the competitions. While you may be correct with respect to actual day-to-day programming, I'm 100% sure that programming competitions make you a much stronger interviewer for typical software developer interviews. I've never competed in programming competitions, but I've seen the types of questions they ask, and many if not most of the interviews I've experienced recently use the exact same kinds of questions. And in some cases, even the exact same questions!
- j0e1 10y ago
  That just makes me think that they are not doing interviews right either -- ranking based on how quickly you can whip up an algorithm for a tricky question.
  - 10y ago