About the Centre

Centre for Student Competitions of the Faculty of Computer Science prepares students for the team and individual competitions in programming and mathematics.

Throughout the year, the Centre conducts optional courses. Training in competitive programming is conducted with the support of Yandex. Head of the Centre Mikhail Gustokashin leads preparation in programming, Nikolai Chuykin heads training in programming, and Andrey Gavrilyuk, Expert for the Centre, - training in mathematics.

The best students often represent HSE University at Russian and international championships like ICPC, Yandex.Algorithms, International Mathematics Competition, Vojtěch Jarník Mathematical Competition, etc. Off-campus training for participants also takes place.

Apart from traditional competitions, the Centre also prepares students for hackathons under the guidance of Alexander Popovkin. Hackathon enthusiast have united into the Hackathon Club of the Faculty.

Starting in 2018, the Faculty of Computer Science conducts Spring and Autumn Personal Championships in Competitive Programming and Open Student Olympiad in Mathematics.

Another purpose of the Centre is to conduct competitions for school and university students in HSE University. Centre’s staff takes an active part in organising “Vysshaya Proba” Olympiad in computer science. In 2019, the Centre helped to organise the “Vysshaya Proba” Olympiad in programming for teams of school students for the first time. Every year, the Centre organises HSE University site of the Moscow Olympiad for School Students in Computer Science.

Since 2016, the Faculty of Computer Science in cooperation with the Strategy Educational Centre has been holding an annual Summer School in Computer Science in Lipetsk, where the 7th to 10th-grade students train for computer science competitions and get acquainted with various areas of computer science for two weeks. The staff of the Centre for Student Competitions organises the selection of participants and the learning process at the summer school.

The best practices from student competitions are implemented at the Faculty by the Centre's staff and teachers. For example, many courses related to programming use the principles of checking students' reasonings from the competitions. Sometimes these courses use problems from competitions as well.

Online courses in C++ and Python have been recorded for Coursera and Stepic by Mikhail Gustokashin, the head of the Centre. They are used at the Faculty but also help school students prepare for competitions, and the C++ course allows students who have studied other languages to start participating in competitive programming.