U.S. slips lower in coding contest

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"ominous sign"

As much as alarmist press seems to be the favored approach, a little realism might be in order.

The ACM ICPC allows a maximum of six students from a particular university to compete, only three of them can advance to the world finals. From all of North America, the eleven regions send well under 100 students. A chunk of which is occupied by Canadian teams.

As a past competitor and a coach, I feel comfortable stating that the overall standings prove absolutely nothing about the state of your education. The students involved at the top end of the ACM ICPC have proven to be tremendously better than their peers at a very narrow set of skills, that they usually learn independent of their core studies. A more disturbing example than most: a two-time world finalist whose univerity program was and is theoretical physics.

From here, the article looks as spurious as a claim that non-US race car drivers dominating an international race would be a warning sign about failing driving schools. Uhm, no.

Posted by: Minsk   Posted on: 04/07/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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