EnumerativeCombinatorics's blog

Are you majoring a unique subject for coders?
By EnumerativeCombinatorics, history, 9 years ago, In English

Hello, I'm writing this article just for fun and there's no advisory things for problem solving.

I've been participating in many programming contest for more than 5 years, and I came to one question: what do competitive programmers major in?

Most competitive programmers would answer, "computer science" of course, "mathematics" (applied? I don't know much about that), or "engineering".Some of coders are still high-school students and they haven't decided their major yet, or maybe some people works after graduating high-school. But is that true that 99 percent of university coders are majoring in those subjects?

In fact, I'm studying about ecology and environmental sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture in my university (The U of Tokyo). I guess no other competitive programmers are from my faculty, even though U of Tokyo has so many red or yellow coders (as you may know).

Here's my story: I started competitive programming when I was a junior high school student. I was belonging to mathematics club in the school and my friends taught me about programming, algorithms and where to practice problem solving skills. Then I participated in domestic OI and a few years later I won a silver medal at IOI. At the same time, I've become interested in biology, and attended domestic Biological Olympiad things. On programming side, I was (and still am?) interested only about contests and I didn't have a plan to be engineer or researcher about informatics. Then, I'm studying about ecology now.

When I was a high school student and taking part in domestic OI, I met friends who would major the subject far from computer science, but most of them didn't keep solving problems or participating in contests. Even I'm not sure how long I can take part in contests (of course I want to compete in the contest as long as I can), but I think I may be the best competitive programmer from agriculture areas as long as I keep participating contests ;).

So today, I wonder how many coders from over the world are majoring such a subject, and want to know very unique majors you do or you did. Feel free to comment about coders' university majors.

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9 years ago, # |
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Great ... you were belonging to a math club , your friend taught you programming then you went to study ecology ?! (like : I went to the shop and saw a bag then I liked jeans , after all I baught a shirt :D)

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9 years ago, # |
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Most people from my university that do competitive programming are majoring in computer science and computer engineering (from other areas like math, physics or other engineering areas I almost know no one), though I met a girl once that was majoring in civil engineering and did some problems, casually, in HackerRank.

I think one of the most famous is SourSpinach, he studied music in university.

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9 years ago, # |
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Some famous Chinese coder majored in non-STEM when they are undergraduate student:

  • Sen Gu (matrix67): Department of Chinese Language and Literature
  • Qinxiang Cao (HELEN_KK): Department of Philosophy
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    9 years ago, # ^ |
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    Chinese coders could be founded everywhere :v

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9 years ago, # |
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I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I also belong to programming club of my institution from where I have learnt many stuffs. Its fun participating in contest. I like to solve mathematical problems more on judges like Project Euler.

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9 years ago, # |
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really ??
red coder is interesting in biology ??
god bless you :p

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    9 years ago, # ^ |
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    Since I'm also Syrian I know why you're saying this. However, real life biology is really interesting and just as intellectually challenging as any other field (except quantum mechanics maybe?)

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9 years ago, # |
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I_love_Hoang_Yen said this.

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9 years ago, # |
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I'm going to double major computer science and economics.

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    9 years ago, # ^ |
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    Great contender for the Best decision of your life award. I minored in economics, majored in CS, and economics from the books is useless, because they were written like a decade ago maybe. Economics from actual sources is really interesting to learn.

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9 years ago, # |
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donvel (despite his rating he got quite impressive achievements at high school and defeated our team 1,5 year ago at CERC) badly wanted to major at medicine, however due to some reasons he finally decided to go for CS. And now it is likely that in near future he will go to seminary to become a priest :f

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9 years ago, # |
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I am majoring in Metallurgical and Materials Science Engineering. I have serious hatred towards my branch. I don't belong to any Programming/Mathematical Clubs in our Institute.

I like to solve Mathematical Problems and Participating in Programming Contests is fun!

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9 years ago, # |
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razimantv is a physicist . He participated in ACM ICPC world finals pursuing a physics degree in a very prestigious college in India. Now he has a PHD in photonics from EFPL !

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9 years ago, # |
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majoring in MSc(Hons.) Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering along with a lot of computer science freelancing.

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9 years ago, # |
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I used to study polish filology for one semester but I quit because it was damn to hard... ;)

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9 years ago, # |
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I have started both CS and physics studies. I have finished bachelor's degree in CS and master's degree in physics. Now I'm a PhD student in physics.

Story: I wanted to try something that would be more connected to real world than CS (meaning algorithms, coding stuff for a company doesn't excite me at all). I ended up liking it and choosing that path of career. As it turns out, theoretical physics is quite far from real world (but not too far), but at least I have some fun.

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9 years ago, # |
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It's being a long time since I graduated, but my major was International Finance.

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