On the 6th of March 2010, four students from ACJC participated in the 13th National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI). It is a programming competition organized by the NUS School of Computing in which students are required to design correct and efficient
algorithms to solve five tasks in four and a half hours. NOI emphasises creativity in
problem solving and expertise (in programming language like Pascal, C, or C++). One of our students, Dao Phuc Quang Tri from 1SA1, achieved a gold medal and overall second position.

This is Tri’s reflection on the NOI experience:

Though it was not a brand new experience (I joined NOI 2009 as well), it felt different this time, probably owing to my  thorough preparation during the November holidays. The four and a half hours of coding was exhausting but I felt really good after solving the five tasks quite successfully. The Prize Giving Ceremony came a week after and I was a little surprised to receive a Gold Medal as well as getting the second position among the top contestants.

This competition in computing gave me the motivation and interest in pursuing a career in information technology. It highlights the finer points of programming, which is not  merely writing a piece of code, but involves useful algorithmic techniques and problem solving skills to equip me with knowledge beyond that of a mere IT application user.