Teams participating in Pseudo Code and Logic Hunt segments of the renowned competition return with first and second place trophies respectively
HABIB UNIVERSITY, April 27: Four students enrolled in Habib University’s School of Science & Engineering have returned with top honors from one of the biggest inter-university competitions in the city of Karachi.
Anusha Fatima (B.S. Computer Science, 2018), Affan Aslam (B.S. Computer Science, 2018), Amin Shiraz Gilani (B.S. Computer Science, 2018) and Noorullah Farid (B.S. Computer Science, 2019) represented Habib University in the Pseudo Code and Logic Hunt segments of the ProBattle’16 competition organized by the Institute of Business Administration. Anusha, Affan and Amin formed the Pseudo Code team, while Noorullah teamed up with Anusha and Amin to represent Habib University in the Logic Hunt segment.
The three sophomores – Anusha, Affan and Amin – are currently enrolled in the Databases, Functional Data Structures, Nature of Computation and Object Oriented Programming courses at Habib University. Anusha and Amin are co-chairs of Habib University’s Brain.Hack() computer science club, while Affan recently represented Habib University at an international conference on quantum computing in Banff, Canada.
Their team for Pseudo Code – a competition that tests participants’ knowledge of problem solving – took first place thanks to what the students called their “strong theoretical knowledge of computer logic and coding.”
Affan while reflecting on their team’s strengths said:
We have really good Computer Science courses at Habib University, and our faculty’s dedication just makes them great. As far as theoretical computer science is concerned, I felt that our courses are far better than what other students are being taught.
Competing with 17 other teams in the Pseudo Code category, the three comfortably beat the competition to clinch the top prize in the segment. “We were able to solve all the problems presented to us accurately, something that most other students were unable to do,” Anusha recalled.
“One of the organizers later told us that we won by a huge margin. The second place team was nowhere close to us,” added Amin.
To be the best team in the running for first place, the three worked as a close-knit team to achieve their goals. “One question required a lot of computation, so we gave that to Amin to solve as he’s really good at math,” said Anusha. “This way, we split the work according to each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Amin added.
From Left to Right: Amin Shiraz Gilani (B.S. Computer Science), Noorullah Farid (B.S. Computer Science), Dr. Waqar Saleem (Program Director, Computer Science), Anusha Fatima (B.S. Computer Science).
In the Logic Hunt segment too, Habib students did exceptionally. Though they came in second place, the margin of loss was “only one point!” as they were quick to add. This segment involved questions related to math, vocabulary, pattern matching and IQ.
“From ProBattle’16, we learnt what we should and should not do when organizing such events,” Noorullah said. “We really hope to do something similar here soon.”
Dr. Waqar Saleem, Program Director of Computer Science at Habib, said: “It’s great that we’re able to attract such bright students; and when they go out and win such competitions, it is a strong validation for the computer science program at Habib.”
We now know that the thoughts and ideas we had when we started designing Habib University’s Computer Science program were on the right track and that they actually work.
