Arnav is a freshman at University of Texas at Austin and a Turing Scholar. He specializes with our USACO Bronze students and is excellent at teaching the problem solving insights necessary to advance in competitive programming. Let’s get to know him!
When did you start to code?
I first started coding in 7th grade where I started working on personal projects such as a Cricket match simulator. Doing these projects got me excited about Computer Science and led me to start doing competitive programming and more complex personal projects.
Why is it important for kids to start coding when young?
Coding requires many skills including critical thinking and problem-solving. By starting early kids are able to learn how to approach problems by breaking them down into smaller tasks which helps their critical thinking. This helps develop an intuition that can be applied to more complex problems in computer science, but also in other fields such as math. Also, job opportunities for coding aren’t going away and are in wide variety so developing the skills necessary to code will only be beneficial.
What advice do you have for kids learning how to code?
One piece of advice I believe is to do what you find interesting. There are many use cases for coding such as projects, competitive programming, machine learning, cybersecurity, etc. so you should find what you enjoy and pursue learning through that as you will be more motivated to learn. What you learn can be applied to the other use cases so pick what you enjoy!
More Great Mentors Just Like Arnav
The secret to delivering consistent learning results to students isn’t a perfect step-by-step tutorial. It is our excellent team of mentors. We only hire inspiring mentors from top colleges, just like Arnav, plus for the USACO focus, they are all former competitors themselves. So even though Arnav may not be able to take on another student, we can pair your son or daughter with someone just as impressive.