YWCC Students Score in Top 20 at ICPC Regional Competition

When a representative from the highly-competitive International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) personally congratulates you on your win, it’s an indication of growth and greater things to come. It signifies that student talent and tenacity thrive when mentored by great leaders. Such is the case with the Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC) Programming Club, led by senior computer science major and president Jaden Nguyen and their coach, Assistant Professor Martin Kellogg, who scored in the top 20 for two of their four teams among 83 competitors from some of the most prestigious institutions in the Mid-Atlantic region.

NJIT-bar, with teammates Erik Mattson, Jack Tokuda and Nguyen ranked No. 17, and NJIT-baz, comprised of Amitesh Arya, Dominic Attalienti and Jonah Eng came in at No. 20. However, when you are playing against the likes of Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, NYU and Yale, NJIT-razz and NJIT-qux at No. 57 and No. 65, respectively, proved that Anthony Abdalla, Claudy Auguste, Saketh Golla, Truong Dang, Quang Minh Le and Jainam Shah can hold their own against the best in what is considered the top algorithmic programming contest for college students in the world.

Nguyen credits Kellogg with vastly improving the club’s abilities over the last year. Having a faculty member as coach made the members feel more “official” and “serious.” Prior to Kellogg, practice sessions were largely overseen by Nguyen, which he viewed as “limited to how good I was.” Now weekly meetings were more fun and focused not only on more difficult challenges, but strategizing which problems to solve first, given that time limits play a key role in which teams win in the end.

Endurance is also paramount to success. Teams must solve a collection of complex, real-world algorithmic challenges within a grueling five-hour deadline. Collaborating around a shared computer with a problem statement, teams race against the clock in an intense exercise of reasoning, strategy and persistence. According to Nguyen, the last two hours of the event were the toughest, especially because his team saved the hardest problems for last.

“We never had two teams in the top 20,” Kellogg said with some admiration. Then again, as a seasoned ICPC player during his undergrad years at the University of Virginia, considered one of the strongest in the country, and later as a co-coach while a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, he knew the skills and experience he brought to the proverbial table would improve the club’s chances for success.

What a difference just a little under two years can make. At that time, Nguyen had only recently become the new president and principal coach for the club, which was comprised mostly of freshmen and sophomores participating in their first competition against upperclassmen from ivy league institutions. Nevertheless, they performed admirably, even raising their ranking from No. 42 to 33 by solving one of the most difficult problems ahead of half the ivy league teams.

The top three 2024 ICPC regional teams will advance to the continental competition; those that score the highest after that go on to the world event.

But this year’s NJIT teams already feel they’ve grown tremendously, and with another year to practice, envision moving to the next level as something within reach.

In the meantime, the club will turn its attention to coding interview prep through LeetCode, an online platform designed to give students coding practice in preparation for job and internship interviews.

According to Nguyen, the most valuable part of ICPC and LeetCode practice is the ability to develop and nurture the skills that will give students a leading edge in industry.

“[It] trains you to change how you think. Unlike being in class, you can’t memorize and need to problem solve under pressure and on your feet,” he said.

Now a senior in YWCC as well as the Albert Dorman Honor’s College (Arya, Attalienti, Eng, Abdalla, Golla and Shah are also Dorman Scholars), Nguyen feels that he has created “a clear road plan to leave behind” when he graduates and passes the presidential torch to his successor – “with the help, no doubt, of Professor Kellogg.”

Find out more about joining Ying Wu’s Programming Club here.