A group of Troy University computer science students put their problem-solving skills on display when they competed at the Intercollegiate Collegiate Programming Contest’s North America Championship (NAC) at the University of Central Florida from May 26-31.
Yongchen Zhou and Keyang Li, both seniors from Changzhou, Jiangsu, China, and Jinbo Liu, a senior from Xuzhou, Jinagsu, China, earned a spot in the NAC after placing in the top 50 in the Southeast USA Regional Contest. Competitions typically last five hours, and ranking is determined by the number of correctly solved real-world problems.
The NAC is a premier programming competition with more than 2,500 teams competing annually to progress to the NAC with hopes of advancing to the World Finals. Throughout the year, over 60,000 teams from around the globe compete for one of the coveted 128 placements at the ICPC World Finals.
The first NAC event was held in 2020, and in 2021 the NAC combined with the North America Programming Camp (NAPC). The NAPC provides student competitors with the opportunity to learn from trainers who have extensive experience in competitive programming and other related activities. The training focuses on techniques and topics in competitive programming that are crucial for strong performances at NAC-level contests.
TROY’S team, Mahjong Masters, are members of the computer science club, which is open to all students.
As technology advances, tech-savvy computer science students are a necessity to keep society up and running. TROY offers several different pathways to hack into the field: a bachelor’s degree in computer science, a bachelor’s degree in cyber security, a bachelor’s degree in applied computer science and a master’s degree in computer science with multiple concentrations.
As of Fall 2021, 549 undergraduate and 51 graduate students were studying some facet of computer science, according to Dr. Hyung Jae “Chris” Chang, Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Computer Science.
“Computer science is one of the most popular majors in our modern world,” he said. “Wherever we go, computing jobs will highly likely be there, and we see very positive outlooks for job opportunities with high salaries. Our recent graduates are working for various companies, such as Bank of America, Lockheed Martin, Goldman Sachs and CGI, in various capacities, including programmer, data analyst and database administrator.”
A computer science club is open to all University students regardless of major.
Original source can be found here.
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