First-Year Students of HSE Perm Take Part in 2022 Northern Eurasia Programming Finals
The final team competitions of the World Programming Championship ICPC-2022 for students in the Northern Eurasian region (NERC) were held simultaneously in Almaty, Barnaul, Kutaisi, and St Petersburg. First-year students of the Bachelor's programme 'IT System Development for Business' Valeria Belash, Alisa Dolnykova, and Kirill Talan took part in the competitions.
In order to get to the finals, the HSE Perm team underwent a selection process alongside 346 teams from the Ural region: a qualification round followed by competitions in Yekaterinburg. The first-year HSE University students placed among the top 25 teams and went to the final competition in St Petersburg. Based on the results of the final, the 12 strongest teams from the Northern Eurasia Finals rating table go through to the final of the International Collegiate Programming Contest World Championship.
The competition lasted five hours, during which participants had to solve the maximum number of tasks set by the jury. The solutions involve developing an algorithm and writing program code in one of the languages allowed under the competition rules. The level of complexity of the tasks as well as the requirements for algorithms increase every year. To solve a task, the algorithm must use the minimum amount of memory and work as fast as the algorithm developed by the task's compilers, who are ICPC winners from previous years.
HSE Perm student teams have competed in all Northern Eurasia finals since 2014. In 2022, for the first time, the team consisted exclusively of first-year students of the Bachelor's in 'IT System Development for Business' While it was challenging to compete with more experienced teams, they showed perseverance and fought to the end.
Kirill Talan, student of the Bachelor's programme 'IT System Development for Business'
Going all this way from the computers in the third HSE building in Perm to the M-1 arena in St Petersburg was extremely interesting! When our team was registering for the competition, we did not think about the next stages, but it turned out that each time we went further and further. The joy we felt from the organisers' messages that we were going to Yekaterinburg and then to St Petersburg was simply beyond words! In general, I am more than satisfied with our result, but I believe that there is always room for improvement, so we do not plan to stop there. On the contrary, in the coming years I would like to consolidate and expand on this success and go international.
Valeria Belash, student of the Bachelor's programme 'IT System Development for Business'
Participating in the qualifying round on October 11 in the third HSE building, we could not even imagine that on December 7 we would take part in the semi-finals of the ICPC—the largest international programming competition—in the M-1 arena in St Petersburg! The festive atmosphere of the competition was impressive, and the balloons for each task we solved turned out to be a pleasant surprise. We are immensely glad that we performed at such a serious level. We plan to further develop our competition programming skills, train hard, and get even better results next year.
Alisa Dolnykova, student of the Bachelor's programme 'IT System Development for Business'
In December, our team was lucky enough to reach the semi-finals of ICPC, the largest international programming competition for students. When we were applying for and writing the qualifying round on computers in the third building, we could not even imagine that we would go so far. I was very impressed with the scale of the competition: a huge arena, hundreds of teams of programmers, and a friendly atmosphere because everyone is united by one goal—to demonstrate their programming abilities. But I'm not completely satisfied with our result. I would like to solve more tasks, which means preparing more. I want to devote my time to this in order to leave the competition with an award certificate in 2023.