HSE University Wins Seven Medals at International Mathematics Competition for University Students
HSE students were among the winners of the International Mathematics Competition for University Students (IMC), which was held in August in Bulgaria. The medallists are students of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science (FCS) programme in Applied Mathematics and Information Science and the Faculty of Mathematics programme in Mathematics.
The IMC is one of the most prestigious international mathematics competitions. This year, the competition was held from July 28 to August 3 in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria). It has traditionally been organised by University College London and the American University in Bulgaria. More than 430 students from over 50 leading universities around the world took part in this year’s competition. It is not easy to qualify for the FCS team that competes in the IMC, as students must actively participate in other mathematics competitions throughout the year, including the Open Student Mathematics Olympiad.
At the IMC, HSE University was represented by five FCS students (gold medals were awarded to Aleksandr Klimchuk, second-year student, Artemii Bakaev, first-year student, and German Kuznetsov, fourth-year student, and silver medals to Daniil Solunov, second-year student, and Igor Vorotnikov, third-year student) and two students from the Faculty of Mathematics (silver medals were awarded to Mikhail Evseev, fourth-year student, and abronze medal to Konstantin Sereda, fourth-year student). Ivan Kukharchuk, Expert of the FCS Centre of Student Competitions, accompanied the HSE team. During the academic year, he conducts mathematics competition training for students.
For more details on the competition results, click here.
Ivan Kukharchuk
‘The International Mathematics Competition for University Students stands out for its challenging problems that do not require knowledge of algorithms, but a creative approach to solving them,’ says Ivan Kukharchuk. ‘HSE achieved respectable results: three gold medals, three silver medals, and a bronze. Now, the doors of the best finance and IT companies are open to these students. Based on the results, HSE University ranked among the world’s top twenty universities. We will continue to work hard to maintain this high standard.’
Aleksandr Klimchuk
Aleksandr Klimchuk liked the atmosphere at the competition. ‘The nice city, the university, the community, the company stands—all of it made participation enjoyable,’ he remarked. ‘I had the chance to meet with new people from different universities and to reconnect with old friends. The competition turned out to be both challenging and interesting. It was especially important to reset after the first day, when the second task left many of us stunned. I managed to do it, so in the second round I did way better. Although I found some of the problems boring—especially in linear algebra, where I expected something more interesting—overall I enjoyed solving them.’
Igor Vorotnikov
Igor Vorotnikov reflected on the quality of the problems at the IMC. ‘It’s one of the best competitions,’ the student noted. ‘In general, all the problems, except one or two, were solvable. For me, personally, the hardest part was choosing strategies in each round. I didn’t like the grading system—for example, giving points for drafts. I had never encountered thisbefore, and I don’t think it’s a good rule. It was nice to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the international community and to meet people from different parts of the world.’
Text by Maria Vorontsova
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