The next months will be really crazy. I will be at the Millenium Youth camp in Helsinki, at the national computer science olympiad in Iasi and at the national networking contest Acadnet, which will be held at University "Politehnica" of Bucharest. Furthermore, I will tell you about a misunderstood word, for which I received an interview offer from a company in USA.
Millenium Youth Camp
It all started 2 years ago. I've learnt about the camp, from Europe Direct Valcea, a local NGO, where I am volunteer. I applied to it, but I sent the application 2 hours before the deadline... and I wasn't accepted.
If you think that this year I was better organised... well I put the reminder for the deadline only 4 hours before, so yes, I was better prepared. The application form wasn't too complex: I had to explain why do I want to participate in the camp and some of my prior experience in my domain, IT&C. I got lucky, because from 1621 participants, I was selected in the top 100.
Afterwards, we received a homework: we had to write a project proposal of 2 pages, which could be applied in our domain. This was one of the moments when I felt that Steve's advice is right: "You can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards."
Last summer I took 3 online courses: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Databases. I finished all 3 of them, but there were a lot of sleeping nights missed or stressing exam days back then. Moreover, my school grades fall, because I focused more on the courses.
Therefore, I decided to propose an online university, like Udacity or Coursera. The project is available here if you want to see it.
Finally, I had a phone interview, which went quite well. The list of the final applicants who were accepted is available here, together with other details about the camp.
National Olympiad of Computer Science
Last year I didn't qualify for it (because I forgot that strings end with a '\n'), and 2 years ago I got a bronze medal. In 2 weeks I'll be in Iasi, to compete with the best algorithm coders in the country.
Acadnet National Contest
Just 3 days after the national olympiad, I will be at University "Politehnica" of Bucharest, for a networking contest organised by Cisco. Last year I won the contest at the section of my age, but I didn't manage to qualify for the international phase, because I was too young. This year I hope to make it to the last phase.
A surprise offer
Last week I received an email from a recruiter. It was from a big tech company in USA, and they were looking for Software Engineers for their offices in California. I replied and told her that I am currently in high-school, and I am not really interested because I have final exams. Her next reply was that she thought that "college" means university, but in my country colleges are high-schools. All in all, it's good to know that people from top companies like what I do.
Change of style
Most blog posts I write about events are written after one month or so, because I get lazy when I arrive home... However, I bought an Android device and it has a nice Blogger app. Therefore, I will try to write, when I will be at the camp or the other contests, each day. You can also follow me on Twitter, subscribe on Facebook, or circle me on Google+ for live updates.
Final words
Tomorrow, me and the other scouts from the local centre will celebrate Wish Day... What are your wishes for this spring !?!