At the age of 11, during my last year in primary school, I created my first Windows Phone application as part of a school contest hosted by Microsoft. That app won the first prize for creativity. Fuelled by the enthusiasm from my app’s success I decided to learn how to write code. Next September, I took a C++ introductory course for high school students. That’s when I firstly got introduced to the concept of competitive programming. Later that year, I qualified to be part in my country’s informatics Olympiad team and took part in my first Informatics Olympiad (JBOI 2015), where I won a bronze medal. My Olympiad journey has been going on since. For the past years I have been qualifying to be a member of the national team for Informatics Competitions. My most notable results are qualifying for the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI 2018,2019) and winning a silver medal in the European Junior Olympiad in Informatics (EJOI 2017). While training for Informatics Olympiads, I became fluent in C++ and I now find myself able to easily pick up a new programming language, but also grasp new concepts faster, something which will be useful while studying for a Computer Science degree. Practicing Competitive Programming also requires having a deep understanding of algorithms and an ability to think creatively, so I believe my past achievements highlight these abilities in me.
I am constantly trying to deepen my knowledge in Computer Science, but also to discover new areas of the field that I wasn’t familiar with. I have attended a few seminars based on different topics of computer science. One of them inspired me to experiment with the Raspberry Pi, an activity I found fun but also very educational. It taught me how to make my own programmes to interact with third party applications, but also how to utilize a computer to solve a modern-day problem. A project for which I am proud of completing is creating a multi-room audio setup, which was found useful in my sister’s birthday party.
Apart from Computer Science, I am also interested in other fields, which can be seen from my results through the years.. In the past years I placed among the top ranks of my country in physics, chemistry and mathematics contests. I represented my country in the European Union Science Olympiad, where my team got a bronze medal. I also represented my country in the Balkan Mathematical Olympiad as well as the International Mathematics Olympiad in 2019, where I earned honourable mentions. My interest and passion in mathematics can also be noticed from the results of my Mathematics and Further Mathematics A levels. Due to my past experience with Mathematics and Competitive Programming, I have intensively trained my problem solving skills, which are needed while studying for a computer science degree.
The area that interests me most in a Computer Science degree is Algorithms and Data Structures, as I I find it enjoyable solving hard problems combining my algorithmic knowledge with my creativity. I really enjoy ad-hoc problems, which require creativity and insight and usually have really beautiful solutions, which are often hard to come up with. Moreover, I particularly enjoy dynamic programming problems. The principle of solving subproblems which can later help you solve the whole problem is extremely powerful, and I find that it sometimes can be applied in real life too, in non algorithmic problems.
On the other side, I would like to expand my knowledge in computer architecture and really get to know how computers work at the core. The process of transforming simple electricity signals to sound and picture has always fascinated me. I believe that .
On the other side, I would like to learn how to create and manage big projects, and gain experience in Software Engineering.
I believe that a computer science degree from a top-level UK university would equip me with knowledge and skills to fulfil my ambitions and excel in the Computer Science domain. I plan to continue my studies after receiving an undergraduate degree and I hope to make significant contributions in Computer Science research. The opportunity of working in the industry is also of importance to me, because my work would have a bigger impact on the world if I was working on real life applications of my field.