This was originally a diary entry, but I showed it to some students
who told me I should put it in my blog instead.
Imagine you’ve moved to a new town, and want to explore the local offerings,
because there’s a lot to do and see, and you’re expecting to live here a while.
The first few days, it’s really overwhelming. Everything is unfamiliar. You get
lost just trying to buy groceries. You constantly have to consult maps to get
anywhere. It takes a while to adjust.
But after the first week, you notice you don’t need a map as much. You can walk
to the grocery store yourself; you remember which turn to take each crossing.
You know the names of the biggest streets and a few landmarks, and you can get
around with familiar roads as anchors. Though you’ve only been inside …
In a previous post I tried to
make the point that math olympiads should not be judged by their relevance to research mathematics.
In doing so I failed to actually explain why I think math olympiads are a
valuable experience for high schoolers, so I want to make amends here.
1. Summary
In high school I used to think that math contests were primarily meant to
encourage contestants to study some math that is (much) more interesting than
what’s typically shown in high school.
While I still think this is one goal, and maybe it still is the primary goal in some people’s minds,
I no longer believe this is the primary benefit.
My current belief is that there are two major benefits from math competitions:
- To build a social network for gifted high school students with similar interests.
- To provide a challenging experience that lets gifted students …
