Typically, high school seniors graduate high school before they go to college.
Not senior Nathan Pinsker, who just returned from studying at Clemson University in South Carolina;“studying” in the sense that he was participating in a computer science camp at the university, not that he will matriculate there in the fall.
While seniors at Palo Alto High School usually relax and prepare for graduation during this time of year, senior Nathan Pinsker refused to follow that stereotype by working hard and qualifying for the United States national team in the International Olympiad in Informatics. The competition will be held in Thailand from July 22 to 29.
TheInternational Olympiad in Informaticsis the world’s premier computer science programming competition for high school students.
“It’s like an algorithms competition where they give you problems, and you solve them,” Pinsker said.
Pinsker scored high enough during preliminary computer science competitions to be selected for an intense and extremely selective eight-day camp held at Clemson University in South Carolina. Only the top 15 scorers across all preliminary competitions were invited to attend.
During the camp, attendees take what is known as theUnited States of America Computing Olympiad, a computer science test that sifts through the camp attendees for the top four students. The contest is part of the overallInternational Science Olympiadgroup of competitions that covers many scientific fields.
Pinsker and his three new teammates outperformed 11 other high school students to claim their spots on the national team. When asked where most of these kids were from, Pinsker responded, “There’s like 15 kids mostly either from the Bay Area or around [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. Go figure.”
MIT will have the pleasure of having Pinsker as an incoming freshman starting this coming fall.
With much practice, Pinsker was able to improve on his already impressive showing in the same competition last year, when he qualified to attend the same selection camp at Clemson University but failed to advance to the national team. So, then, what’s his secret to doing well at the international level against the best of the best?
“Probably more training and preparing by doing practice problems or whatever, then flying on a long plane eventually,” Pinsker said.