Svetlana Loboda and Till Lindemann together: the hottest and most tender photos of a sweet couple

You don’t have to solve 100% problems to get good results

Previously, anxiety was a big problem for me. I could spend almost an hour just thinking about how low my score was, how I couldn’t handle it. It prevented me from thinking about the problems normally and became a big obstacle.

Regarding strategy, the advice I remembered the most was this: in IOI, if you look at the statistics of previous years’ results, stable, although not high, results on each problem often give a higher ranking in total. That is, for good results, it is not at all necessary to solve 100% problems; you can simply complete many relatively simple partial blocks.

You should read each problem, think for three minutes, and immediately write code from everything you came up with. And then think for another ten minutes and write code again. And when this is done for all three problems, you already have a good understanding of what makes sense to work on next.

But the anxiety did not let go.  I started thinking about why it occurs and how to overcome it. At first, I thought it was because I was distracted by noise. I started using earplugs at the Olympiads. It turned out that the noise wasn’t the whole problem. Then I just consulted a psychologist, and that reduced my anxiety even more. Perhaps it also mattered that with each subsequent competition the situation became more familiar, and therefore caused less anxiety.

A chance to be noticed as an engineer

Despite the excitement I experienced, the Olympiads gave me more than just medals. I already know what topics I would be interested in studying at university. These are AI, or general Computer Science and Informatics, or cybersecurity. And of course, there are a bunch of student Olympiads, competitions.

Another reason to participate in as many Olympiads as possible is a bonus for employers, a chance to be noticed as an engineer. I haven’t really looked into how specifically I might need it.  But I hope it will help somehow.

I applied to several universities, but most likely I will study at the Poznań University of Technology. I chose a bachelor's program in AI in English. AI is my priority as a researcher now. Then I can apply this knowledge for the benefit of Ukraine.

I would like to study AI from a theoretical point of view: perhaps, to improve existing methods of training models. To understand why models work and learn the way they work. As for practical application, I haven't figured it out myself yet.