How it feels to practice for IOAI in Iran

No this isn't the

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HN has a post character limit it seems. So that's why. I don't want to waste time making this beautiful. HN is already ugly or I'd better say naked. Anyways sorry.

How it feels to practice for IOAI in Iran

Imagine you're this Iranian guy, you're just studying in the "shining talents" school. Then your straight-A friend tells you that there is this cool Olympiad about AI, being held for the first time in Iran. They are good at math and algorithms and stuff like that, but they don't have the confidence to study for the informatics Olympiad and think everyone there is a genius. They think AI Olympiad is more competition-free and easier. Actually, you're also bad at informatics and discrete math and everything related to computer science (and you want to get accepted in the best university of the country, in computer science!). So you both participate, with you signing up as late as you can, not being sure.

At first, it seems like an easier version of informatics Olympiad, but then you find out that you need to learn statistics, probability and calculus and continuous stuff like that, so it's different. You feel good because your are better in calculus than combinatorics (still horrible grades, but better). So you study.

Today is the day. You brought a pen, because you are used to school exams and final exams, not Olympiads. Someone you know lends you a pencil. You give the exam, and it looks like some sort of IQ test than AI or even statistics. You finally see some statistics and you solve those, also seeing the Monty Hall problem that you just know the name of because your nerd friend tried to explain it to you, before the Olympiad existed and you only shook your head so he doesn't have to stay and explain again just because you're bad. And you feel you did very very bad at the test. You guess you got 50% correct with your friend saying they got 70%.

Later on you hear from your friend and different sources that the floor would be around 30%-40% so you feel better. Then you get accepted! You didn't study much for the first exam, yet you got accepted. So unlike past you start studying consistently. Not a lot in volume, just consistently, 2-3 hours a day and you start liking it so you make it 4-5 hours, also studying for school.

You read the one hundred page ML book, and it's hard. You watch the Andrew NG course, and you find out it's so easy. You play it with 2x speed while also skipping with the arrow keys and you understand. You try to understand and memorize everything, even unimportant stuff like names of different things and concepts.

You have been studying for some time, and you are in this telegram channel that your smart friend introduced to you. It's selling some course now that the first exam ended. You hate courses. You also saw some course from a known organization. You didn't actually see, you saw the cover and that it costs 10 million tomans which was approximately 107.5 dollars at the time and now is 55 dollars (because the toman value decreased, not that the price decreased). But back to the unknown random telegram channel, their course costs 2 million tomans, 21.5 dollars in that time. You remember the idiom "There is no expensiveness without wisdom, no cheapness without reason." and don't want to buy the course.

You were talking to their sales support, and when you say no, they tell you you can pay 500 thousand instead if you have financial problems and you can participate in two sessions and then decide. If they only told you the "500 thousand" part, you'd be more suspicious but the second part is a good, harmless deal. At end the only thing you were worried about was that the courses don't have the needed quality. By the way, one session has already passed. The support also gives you a telegram ID, which is ID of the owner. They also talk with you and say some good things and convince you. You also know that they are from Ilam, and their goal is to make the Olympiad competition fair for everyone, not just the people who live in capital and study in the best country of the capital and the country. So you participate, not paying yet.

You go to the class, it's boring it's slow. There is no 2x and there is no skipping. That's why you hate courses. But some stuff click. Not entirely, but enough so you can later on search and chat with ChatGPT and use phind and perplexity and whatever to understand it deeper. It is indeed worth it, and you are surprised how cheap it is. 25 2-3 hour sessions (if teacher doesn't want to go overtime, which they sometimes do), with exams and homework and etc. So only considering the sessions, it's 86 cents per session, price of two ice creams (later on there is like 2-3 extra sessions and they find some test samples and questions for you to solve). You know the teacher isn't here for money. It's good, it's worth it. And it makes you remember to practice and study during the...