revils_ling\" post_id=\"2134474\" time=\"1717146448\" user_id=\"136480:
My DS is now leaning towards DSA Infocomm for HCI instead of DSA Maths after doing some online research on this domain today. But he doesn't have much to show, except for the HCIC results he received today. I was wondering if it's worth trying since his Infocomm achievement will just appear as a 1-liner in his DSA submission. 🤔 A part of me being a parent is wondering if he will have a higher chance in this domain as compared to Maths. He's not dying to get into HCI, but I think he wants to have this option if possible. His 2 other options are NUSH and SST. Would appreciate any advice on this. Thanks!
Some background info:
The results for HCIC 2024 were released this morning, and to our amazement, my DS did surprisingly well. He doesn't have a background or any prior accolades in coding/programming so it was really out of the blue. So far, he has only dabbled in HTML on his own on rare occasions, and for this competition, it was meant as a try for fun activity since he doesn't attend any coding classes and was never particularly keen to. To prep, we borrowed some Python- and robotics-related books from the library for him to read up about 2-3 weeks before the competition. We didn't expect much because most of his afternoons were spent on attending MOs and revising for school common tests. I think he only spent less than 8-10 hours in total reading the books, and about 2 hours trying out the codes on the computer. So when we saw the results this morning, we were dumbfounded and it made us wonder, is this area another strength of his that we didn't know about? His almost 12 years of life has mostly been about his love for Maths only, so we naturally thought that he would just try for DSA Maths when the time comes and that would be it. Now we (including my DS) are not so sure anymore. 😅
Personally I believe a good result in HCIC is quite shiny, because there isn't many coding competitions at the primary school level.
Besides computational thinking and coding, Competitive coding also involves algorithmic thinking and problem solving (some problems are also mathematical in nature), and often people who do well in maths also tens to do well in the latter aspects, so I believe by this logic, your DS's math achievements would also add value to his portfolio for DSA infocomm.
Also, I think it's not strange or rare for some students to discover that they are good or interested in maths and infocomm coding/programming, there exists (and I know at least one Hwa Chong person) who excelled in maths and coding at the international olympiad level.
One thing to note is that competition maths at the secondary school level is quite different from the primary school level as there is a shift in emphasis and transition from solving problems and computing numerical answers to proving mathematical statements. This proving aspect is much harder and may seem more abstract, and many students may lose interest halfway.
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