sparsetable's blog

On China and Motivation
By sparsetable, history, 36 hours ago, In English

Hello! I was thinking on the nature of practice and working hard today, and I noticed how most hardworking competitive programmers really like solving problems (probably common knowledge for everyone by now). This makes sense, as this would lead to solving a lot of problems, which usually leads to progress. However, the particular case of China came to my mind. I am sure that there are a lot of students there that do CP because they find it enjoyable, but the sheer number of high schoolers who are practicing ultra-hard for CP just felt mind-blowing to me. Are there really that many Chinese people who like CP very much? Or are there other factors at play? I am particularly interested as I currently don't care much about enjoying the process and just want to grind as much as possible :p

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35 hours ago, # |
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they have biggest population. if you consider number_of_red / registered_user per country China isn't particularly high.

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    31 hour(s) ago, # ^ |
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    number_of_red / registered_user?
    usually, Chineses only register for practice, since stay up to 0/1 am is not a good habit, and they only participate contests that in a acceptable time.
    please ingore the "UPD". I'm near-sighted. it was in a removed comment.

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34 hours ago, # |
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If you get a NOI gold medal in China (top 50 in the country), you are guaranteed admission to Peking University or Tsinghua University (the two best universities in the country).

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    11 hours ago, # ^ |
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    But isn't top 50 almost impossible for most people? Maybe I'm just too influenced by stereotypes, but I was under the impression that there are a lot of students in China grinding hard for NOI, and not necessarily because they enjoy it. Is there any benefit for people other than the top 50?

    (I sure hope my entire view of the Chinese cp community isn't shaped purely by stereotypes lol)

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      8 hours ago, # ^ |
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      It's true that outside top 50 also has some benefits. While only top 50 can bypass the college entrance exam, good universities have some discretion in offering "discounts" so the students they like can get in with a lower score requirement. A quick search shown it's now like 85% of the college entrance exam and 15% of the custom score from the universities (it has been long since I was in high school, so this can be inaccurate, but you get the idea). Having a background in the contests can help when competing in these discounts.

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34 hours ago, # |
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I currently don't care much about enjoying the process and just want to grind as much as possible

That seems very wrong to me. CP is just a hobby, it won't pay your bills so it doesn't make any sense to grind if you don't enjoy the process. Prove me wrong.

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    33 hours ago, # ^ |
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    Proof is your age

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      32 hours ago, # ^ |
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      My age shows that I still enjoy the process after so many years doing CP. So the proof is invalid.

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22 hours ago, # |
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Just speaking from what I've hear of, almost all the NOI (contest to get into IOI) participants took months off school to prepare, and catch up with their courseworks once the contest is over. There are many more students who trained this hard but didn't get in to NOI. It's just super competitive. You can view this vibe being somewhat toxic (no offense here), but that's partly shaped by the large population and competition everywhere.

But for me, I simply enjoy solving problems and improving on Codeforces, and never feel stressed :p

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    11 hours ago, # ^ |
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    Wow, that's a pretty good idea absolutely insane, maybe I should try it

    Enjoying problem solving is probably way healthier way in the long term, but currently that just doesn't matter much to me, so I was curious :p

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