By Shandana Mufti

CCIS students don’t shy away from challenges. Examples might include a tough higher-level class, a highly specialized co-op, or nuanced research into a computer science topic. Alp Elci (BSCS ’19) seeks out challenges through his participation in various algorithm competitions, like the annual Google Code Jam.

Google Code Jam is created by Google employees and open to anyone with a Google account. The contest consists of four rounds, starting with a qualification round in which participants must earn a given number of points or solve a given number of problems to proceed to the first round. Three different sections of the first round are held, and the top 1,000 contestants proceed to the next round. The top 500 contestants from the second round proceed to third round. From the third round, the top 20 will proceed to the World Finals, which will be held at Google’s New York offices in August this year.  All the rounds except for the finals are held remotely where participants attempt to complete the problems from their homes.

“[For] this year’s Google Code Jam, we started practicing at the beginning of the semester,” says Alp, who is coordinating practice sessions for interested students. Alp isn’t new to the world of competitive coding – he’s been participating in various competitions since high school.

Alp made it to the first round again this year, though he was ultimately unable to place due to technical difficulties. Last year, he did not make it through the first round.

“I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes from last year,” he says. “There was some background information I was lacking, some fundamental information which I learned over the course of the year.”

In addition to practicing with previous Code Jam problems, Alp’s also been building templates that will streamline the process of writing code during the competition. He practices with a group of other students. Though Google Code Jam is an individual effort, they also participate in other competitions that require teams. When they practice, they ensure that they know the basics of some fundamental algorithms that often come up in competitions, and then they practice problems to improve their accuracy and efficiency.

“I really enjoy the challenge,” he says. “We have to think about what we’re doing in terms of the implementation and also how to correctly implement the intricate thought process that we put into this.”