So, the university's computer science society issued a programming problem to be solved before next Monday.
Whilst people boast in the society IRC channel about their linear-time solutions measured in hundreds of bytes of source code, I'm left with a cubic-time brute-force algorithm and the distinct inability to think my way into finding a linear solution, despite hours of concentration.
And I start wondering to myself: I've never outshone others in the field of raw problem solving. My interviews at Oxford went down like a lead balloon, after all. Will this ever change?
I live in hope. My dream at the moment would be to never leave university, to continue on as a postgraduate and then a researcher. I'd love to be able to push the envelope for computer science, to contribute to society without the humdrum of a standard programming job. That, and I can't bear leaving York and its lovely but unpretentious campus and atmosphere behind. Not yet, at least.
But to be an innovator, I would need to be able to think outside the boundaries, to be creative and, well, innovative. If I can't find a foothold in simple programming exercises, then that worries me - I need to find some field I can push the envelope in, and that's one door that already seems to be closing.
I seem to be very much a man of practice at the moment - I found the practical programming strand by far and away my favourite bit of the course last year, as well as the easiest. I actively enjoy practical programming, especially re-implementing existing ideas in a cleaner or better way, and part of me is convinced that this is my true calling.
We'll see.
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