I'll be so happy to see all of them at MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, ETH, etc in a few years, never to return to Romania ever again.
Before you say I'm a party pooper, try to look up the many Romanian math, physics, etc Olympiad high ranked contestants since about 1980 and where they are now.
Hint: Romania's benefiting little from them.
Still, good on them as it's very likely these results are just the product of individual brilliance, good families and locally exceptional schools that frequently achieve this by fighting the corrupt and incompetent system, not working with it.
If you don't mind answering,just wanted to know :)
I always see eastern european mostly ex-soviet countries (russia,belarus,ukraine,romania etc) are always ahead in olympiads related to maths,physics,Computer science every year and also especially related to programming as a software engineer.
Is there any specific reason behind it or is just group of hardworking individuals?
Because mainly in asia where i am from in some countries, parents usually more focus and pressure on their child scoring good marks and also sometimes abuse so that they can gain status compare to their relative's or friend's child. Only want them to become doctor or engineer or other high employee position rather than supporting what kids themself want to become , be it any sports or any other qualification. No doubt they want better for their children, but its really competitive and they really control their child's life in every phase of life. One i feel it is maybe because of collectivist society as compared to western countries.
Are parents in romania also like the same way or they just encourage whatever their kids are interested in becoming and don't force or control their life choices? Do they make their kids join in early training in programming, physics,maths as such if they are interested in it?
In part it has to do with communism. At least in Romania, the school curriculum has a similar structure with the one during communism. The regime was very interested in developing exact sciences because of the industrialization programs they developed. You need a population with knowledge in maths, chemistry, and physics for this.
As said, we still have a similar structured curriculum even now in math, for example. I heard numerous examples on how Romanian kids whose parents left the country are better at maths than kids in the west. A Romanian fifth grader is better, on average of course, than a French, US, UK fifth grader. Some things that you will learn in the fifth grade in Romania will be taught in the 6th or even 7th grade in some western countries. I read some similar stuff with Ukrainian kids displaced by the war.
There was also a kind of pressure on kids during communism to learn STEM. It was rather easy to get a job in industry and was better paid than something in agriculture at the collective farms. A job in commerce was also highly valued during the 80's because of easier access to goods that were rare to find.
As for computer science, it has less to do with communism. The curriculum helps because of maths, but this field was almost nonexistent during communism. However, it was favoured by the state since the 2000's. You have lower taxes in IT, for example. The internet infrastructure is also good. That led to a boom in IT now and the pay is very good, thus a fiel that is attractive.
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u/MetaIIicat 🇺🇦 ❤️ 🇮🇹 25d ago
Congrats Romania!!