Killing With DSA

Recently I came across a controversy. And felt this needs to be discussed. So first let's understand "My Side Of The Story". I woke up today, and I saw a post by one of my juniors on LinkedIn. It was basically about plagiarism in the Coding contest by another junior of mine. So it seems to be very at first glance.

Someone was trying to flex his coding skills by cheating in leetcode coding contest. And these people got to know about him. So they posted on LinkedIn about this. But things are not that simple. There are many questions here to ask.

Why do people cheat in coding contests?

What happens when they are caught?

Why did the other juniours point this out?

Honestly, I don't know why people cheat in coding contests. And this is a serious concern for these students. It's simple as there is no benefit. You can definitely flex about solving 4/4 in a coding contest but ultimately you have to go and get a job. And there when you go and show your coding platform ranking to be ahead of your competitors, you will gain nothing. As the interviewer will then ask the toughest question in the interview and as you have cheated, you will not be able to answer any question.

What happens when you are caught? Simply your score is not counted in that contest. So after review, you are from 4/4 to 0/4.

But the main question here is why the other juniours pointed this out. If he was flexing 4/4 Questions in a coding contest, let him flex, ultimately it's his loss. Why are they concerned? They continue with their fair practices and improve. It's not jealousy. The catch here is human psychology. NOT of the other students, of the teachers who are in charge of all this.

I know this newsletter will reach the teacher concerned with all is as well. So before sir, you get angry about my post. Please let me explain. Suppose there are 200 students in a college, everyone from a different background. Now I understand college has to produce good engineers and for that DSA is important. MNCs like Google and Microsoft ask DSA. But the thing is all those 200 students are different from each other. If one is good as dancing, the other may be good at singing. Similarly, if one is good at DSA, and is able to complete 3/4 or 4/4 questions in a coding contest, others may be good at Webd or something else. But in the race of producing engineers, teachers start comparing students, by the exact words like, "I don't understand if he can do 4/4 in coding why are you not able to do at least 3/4". I am not saying this is wrong, on the one hand, it's the right way. But the thing is in India there is a concept of "THE SHARMA JI KA BETA". And in comparison with the Sharma ji ka beta, we don't see efforts other people are adding to get to that level. And Teachers either don't understand that overnight students can't get to a level of 4/4, and even if they understand, they somewhere don't properly recognise the amount of effort people are adding. And sometimes the teacher's choice of words is wrong even if his/her intentions are good.

Students have been suffering the Sharma ji ka beta thing since their childhood. In the early stage of education, it was "Sharma ji ke bete ki handwriting kitni achi hai," them to his homework, his projects, his marks, everything is compared. And Every Sharma ji ka beta also has another Sharma ji ka beta for him. So this is a cycle that keeps on going. And this comparison is somewhere killing the art of appreciation we all have. What if the Sharma ji ka beta in college is solving 4/4? Can we not appreciate the efforts these students are making to improve their problem-solving skills? Can we not appreciate the art form all these students worship? Can't we for once say that buddy you are good at singing why don't you try becoming a singer? Can we not say you write well, how about becoming an author? Why should engineering colleges only focus on producing engineers, can't these colleges support students in becoming what they actually want? Why do we force students to kill dreams under the burden of DSA and Assignments?