4 ms·

Why are students from foreign universities, particularly those in Russia, China, so good at these competitions relative to their peers from the US? I understand

Why are students from foreign universities, particularly those in Russia, China, so good at these competitions relative to their peers from the US? I understand it allows for good job placement and its harder to get a job as an immigrant, but does that really explain the vast difference? Is there a big divide in technical standards?

wernerb 12y ago
Students from Eastern europe and Russia are typically more adept at mathematics than western students. I can only guess at why, but they probably focus education more on exact sciences. Many russian-speaking mathematicians are flown in for HFT, algorithmic work etc.
- kazinator 12y ago
  I suspect that it could be because "math" in USA elementary schools means years of doing arithmetic exercises, whereas kids in some other countries move on to symbolic math, like solving for unknown variables in equations. Kids need the symbolic stuff to be brought in as fast as possible, while their brains are malleable.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  Do you have a source for that (eastern europeans/russians are more adept at mathematics), or is this anecdata?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
conistonwater 12y ago
1. They practice much more. It would be difficult for anyone, regardless of the country, to take up programming contests as a minor hobby and expect to compete against people who take it seriously. 2. There is maybe a greater emphasis on theoretical aspects with more rigour, which makes these contests more approachable to start with. But this is nothing compared with sitting down, reading CLRS for an introduction, and then solving some puzzles yourself. This is something anyone can do, just most people aren't very interested in doing it.
- icefox 12y ago
  I would second this. Think of it like interviewing. If you do five to fifteen programming interviews you really get a feel for how programming interviews are conducted, the type of problems, the amount of time the problem should take. Most importantly you get a feel for the questions that are asked can for example abandon a solution that while it would work would take longer than the interview time and thus can recognize that there must be a faster solution you should look for. Simply by doing a number of practice and real interviews you will be much better at interviewing. You as a programmer are probably not that fundamentally better, but you the interviewer are. And if you don't like programming interviews just go lookup how people prepare for Jeopardy, most that appear on the show don't just show up, but have methods for training.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    > Simply by doing a number of practice and real interviews you will be much better at interviewing. You as a programmer are probably not that fundamentally better, but you the interviewer are. That is true, but I see that as a serious weakness in programming interviews rather than a feature. If you can, or even need, to train yourself in things that have no bearing on the job you are being hired for, the interview is flawed. I understand that, to some degree, this is unavoidable. It seems like there is a drive to structure interviews like programming competitions or Jeopardy. However, the latter two are games; an interview should be a well-constructed test, not a game. I do think a large number of non-US people participate in these competitions because of their relationship to current hiring practices.
- Terr_ 12y ago
  I've been going through a used copy of CLRS as a mental nightcap, and speaking as someone with a not-quite-CS technical degree... "Real" CS-degree holders, how much do you actually use all that the proof/lemma/big-O-determining stuff in your jobs? Have I just been in internal-business-CRUD-software too long?
zenbowman 12y ago
For one, there's greater value placed on these competitions outside the United States. Inside the US, a talented programmer will default to working on open source in order to get noticed or create a portfolio worth talking about. Outside the US, many young programmers believe that companies actually care about these kinds of programming competitions. This is my own experience, I haven't seen a study on this but have observed it to be true personally. Anecdotal evidence: http://www.quora.com/Recruiting/For-a-software-engineer-who-doesnt-find-competitive-programming-interesting-but-would-like-to-join-one-of-the-big-tech-companies-Google-Facebook-Microsoft-etc-what-are-the-options/answer/Robert-Love-1 http://www.quora.com/Recruiting/For-a-software-engineer-who-...
- heurist 12y ago
  That's a strange response, Google suggested using topcoder to prepare for interviews last time I talked with them. Competition experience might not mean anything but the ability to complete puzzles like that obviously does hold some significance to them.

wernerb 12y ago

Students from Eastern europe and Russia are typically more adept at mathematics than western students. I can only guess at why, but they probably focus education more on exact sciences. Many russian-speaking mathematicians are flown in for HFT, algorithmic work etc.

kazinator 12y ago
I suspect that it could be because "math" in USA elementary schools means years of doing arithmetic exercises, whereas kids in some other countries move on to symbolic math, like solving for unknown variables in equations. Kids need the symbolic stuff to be brought in as fast as possible, while their brains are malleable.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
Do you have a source for that (eastern europeans/russians are more adept at mathematics), or is this anecdata?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

conistonwater 12y ago

1. They practice much more. It would be difficult for anyone, regardless of the country, to take up programming contests as a minor hobby and expect to compete against people who take it seriously. 2. There is maybe a greater emphasis on theoretical aspects with more rigour, which makes these contests more approachable to start with. But this is nothing compared with sitting down, reading CLRS for an introduction, and then solving some puzzles yourself. This is something anyone can do, just most people aren't very interested in doing it.

icefox 12y ago
I would second this. Think of it like interviewing. If you do five to fifteen programming interviews you really get a feel for how programming interviews are conducted, the type of problems, the amount of time the problem should take. Most importantly you get a feel for the questions that are asked can for example abandon a solution that while it would work would take longer than the interview time and thus can recognize that there must be a faster solution you should look for. Simply by doing a number of practice and real interviews you will be much better at interviewing. You as a programmer are probably not that fundamentally better, but you the interviewer are. And if you don't like programming interviews just go lookup how people prepare for Jeopardy, most that appear on the show don't just show up, but have methods for training.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  > Simply by doing a number of practice and real interviews you will be much better at interviewing. You as a programmer are probably not that fundamentally better, but you the interviewer are. That is true, but I see that as a serious weakness in programming interviews rather than a feature. If you can, or even need, to train yourself in things that have no bearing on the job you are being hired for, the interview is flawed. I understand that, to some degree, this is unavoidable. It seems like there is a drive to structure interviews like programming competitions or Jeopardy. However, the latter two are games; an interview should be a well-constructed test, not a game. I do think a large number of non-US people participate in these competitions because of their relationship to current hiring practices.
Terr_ 12y ago
I've been going through a used copy of CLRS as a mental nightcap, and speaking as someone with a not-quite-CS technical degree... "Real" CS-degree holders, how much do you actually use all that the proof/lemma/big-O-determining stuff in your jobs? Have I just been in internal-business-CRUD-software too long?

zenbowman 12y ago

For one, there's greater value placed on these competitions outside the United States. Inside the US, a talented programmer will default to working on open source in order to get noticed or create a portfolio worth talking about. Outside the US, many young programmers believe that companies actually care about these kinds of programming competitions. This is my own experience, I haven't seen a study on this but have observed it to be true personally. Anecdotal evidence: http://www.quora.com/Recruiting/For-a-software-engineer-who-doesnt-find-competitive-programming-interesting-but-would-like-to-join-one-of-the-big-tech-companies-Google-Facebook-Microsoft-etc-what-are-the-options/answer/Robert-Love-1 http://www.quora.com/Recruiting/For-a-software-engineer-who-...

heurist 12y ago
That's a strange response, Google suggested using topcoder to prepare for interviews last time I talked with them. Competition experience might not mean anything but the ability to complete puzzles like that obviously does hold some significance to them.