Olympiads: Valuable Experience or Useless Pursuit?

I was fourteen when I first realized I could solve what seemed impossible to others. A math Olympiad problem – one of those with triangles and strange conditions – suddenly clicked in my head like a puzzle. I remember the feeling: as if something clicked inside, and the world became a little clearer. Back then, I thought this was important. That it would come in handy.

Twenty years have passed. I have never solved Olympiad problems outside of school. Not once. And you know what? I'm not the only one.

The turning point when perspective shifted

When I realized something was wrong

A few months ago, I met a classmate of mine. We both used to participate in Olympiads – she in physics, I in math and literature. We were sitting in a Viennese café, drinking melange, and she suddenly said, «You know, sometimes I wonder why we learned all that at all. I work as a designer. I need Newton's laws about as much as I need knowledge of Ancient Greek.»

We laughed. But inside, something tightened in me. Because she was right. And I was right too, when I thought about the same thing.

School Olympiads are a special world. They have their own rules, their own logic, their own victories. You learn to solve problems that someone invented specifically to be difficult. You train your brain to see patterns, find regularities, think outside the box. Sounds wonderful, right?

But here's the rub: real life doesn't consist of Olympiad problems. In real life, no one gives you a condition beautifully laid out on a sheet of paper. No one says, «You have three hours and four answer choices.» In real life, you don't even always know what the question is.

What Olympiads truly teach participants

What Olympiads actually teach

I don't want to say that Olympiads are useless. That would be too simple and too crude. But I want to be honest: most of the specific knowledge you gain while preparing for an Olympiad stays in the room where you learned it.

The formulas I crammed for math Olympiads? Forgotten. The literary tropes I analyzed at language arts tournaments? I use them maybe once a year, when writing something very personal. Methods for solving physics motion problems? I don't even remember what they look like.

But there is something else. Something invisible that remained.

The ability not to give up before the incomprehensible

When you sit over a problem for two hours, and nothing is working, and you want to drop everything but continue – you learn patience. Not the patience that makes you suffer in silence. But the kind that whispers, «Try again. From a different angle. Maybe you missed something.»

This comes in handy. When you try to figure out a relationship. When you build a career from scratch. When life throws you a situation for which there is no instruction manual.

The habit of looking for a system in chaos

Olympiad problems are deceptive. They look like chaos, but inside there is always logic. There is always a key. You learn to find it. To look for patterns where others see only disorder.

And this – this is a yes. It works. When I started having panic attacks at twenty-eight, I caught myself looking for a system in them. When do they happen? After what? What provokes them? I treated my anxiety like an Olympiad problem. And you know what? It helped.

The experience of victories and defeats

In Olympiads, you win or you lose. Clearly. No half-tones. And you learn to live through both. You learn to rejoice in victory without considering yourself better than others. And you learn to lose without falling apart.

In adult life, this is priceless. Because adult life is nothing but victories and defeats. Only they aren't announced over the PA system, and no medals are given for them.

Why does a sense of emptiness arise after Olympiads?

But why then this feeling of emptiness?

Here's the thing: when you are fourteen, you are told that Olympiads are important. That it's a path to success. That it will prove your worth. And you believe it. You invest hours, weeks, years. You sacrifice walks with friends, sleep, free time. You do it because you think: this is it, my future.

And then you grow up. And you realize that no one asks you at a job interview if you took a prize place at the regional chemistry Olympiad. No one is interested in how many problems you solved in high school. Your diplomas are lying in a box somewhere, and you don't even remember where exactly.

And then this feeling arises. As if you were deceived. As if you spent time on something unnecessary.

I lived with this feeling for a long time. Until I understood one simple thing.

We learn not for results, but for personal growth

We don't learn for the result. We learn to become ourselves

Maybe it wasn't about learning to solve specific problems. Maybe it was about learning to be a person who is capable of solving. A person who doesn't back down before complexity. Who looks for answers even when they aren't at the back of the textbook.

I think about it this way: Olympiads are not professional training. They are an exercise for the soul. For that part of it responsible for persistence, curiosity, the readiness to meet the unknown.

When I worked as a therapist, I often saw people who were afraid of everything new. Afraid to try, to risk, to make mistakes. They got stuck in the familiar, even if it made them unhappy. Because the unknown is scary. What if it doesn't work out?

And I thought: if only they had the experience of Olympiads. Not for the sake of knowledge. But for the sake of feeling, at least once in life: I can encounter what I don't understand and not break. I can try, fail, try again. And there is no catastrophe in that.

A memorable story from Olympiad experience

The story I haven't forgotten

At sixteen, I participated in a language arts Olympiad. The final round. I had to write an essay on Kafka – I don't remember exactly what about, but I remember I wrote something completely different from what was expected of me. I reasoned about his loneliness, about how a person can be a stranger even to themselves. I wrote sincerely, as best I could. Without memorized clichés.

I didn't take a prize place. Not even close. The jury considered my work «too subjective». I was hurt to tears.

But now, years later, I understand: it was then that I first wrote something real. Something of my own. And yes, it didn't fit the format. Did not receive recognition. But it was mine. The first experience of being honest in a text.

Without that Olympiad, there wouldn't be this text you are reading now. And hundreds of others I've written over these years.

What remains after specific knowledge is forgotten

What remains when formulas are forgotten

I no longer remember how to perform integrals. I don't remember how to prove the Pythagorean theorem in a non-standard way. I don't remember most of what I studied so diligently.

But I remember what it's like – sitting over a problem until late at night, feeling that you're just about to find the answer. I remember the thrill when everything suddenly falls into place. I remember the pride when you manage something that seemed impossible.

These feelings – they haven't disappeared. They just moved to other areas of life. Now I feel the same when I write a complex text. Or when I untangle a knot of my own emotions. Or when I help someone sort themselves out.

Olympiads taught me not to be afraid of complexity. Not to run away from it, but to go towards it. With curiosity. With hope. With a readiness to make a mistake and try again.

Rethinking the value of Olympiads

Or maybe we are asking the wrong question?

When we ask, «Why will Olympiads come in handy in life»? – we are proceeding from utilitarian logic. We want every investment of time and effort to pay off. To have a measurable result. To be able to draw a straight line: I learned this – I used this – I monetized this.

But life doesn't work that way. At least, not all of life.

Some things we don't do for the result. We do them to become those capable of more. To expand the boundaries of our «I can». To prove to ourselves – not to others, but to ourselves – that we are capable of this.

Maybe Olympiads are like reading poetry. Or learning to draw. Or playing a musical instrument. You don't do it because it will «come in handy in life». You do it because it changes you from the inside. Imperceptibly. Immeasurably. But irreversibly.

Advice for my fourteen-year-old self

What I would say to myself at fourteen

If I could go back, to that girl sitting over a problem and believing it determines her future, I would tell her this:

«These formulas you will forget. These problems you will never meet in life again. But what you feel now – this concentration, this thrill, this persistence – you will carry through your whole life. You will learn to solve not the problems in the textbook, but those in the soul. And that will be much more important».

Maybe this is the main paradox of Olympiads. They teach not what they promise to teach. They give not what is written in the diploma. They work on a level that cannot be seen immediately. Only years later, when you suddenly realize: wait, I know how not to give up. Where is this coming from in me?

The honest truth about Olympiads' limitations

Honestly about uselessness

But I don't want to end on a high note. Because that wouldn't be fair. Yes, Olympiads gave me something important. But they also took a lot of time and energy that I could have spent on something else. On friendship. On first love. On simply being a teenager, not a problem-solving machine.

And I'm not sure the balance was fair.

I'm not sure every child needs Olympiads. Some children need more freedom. More play. More time to understand who they are without constant trials and checks.

Olympiads are a choice. And this choice has a price. It's not always worth paying.

Final thoughts on Olympiads' paradoxical value

In the end

I never found a definitive answer. Did Olympiads come in handy? Yes and no at the same time. They didn't give me specific skills for work. But they gave me something more subtle: the belief that I can handle the difficult. That I don't have to know the answer right away. That the process of searching is also a result.

Maybe it's not about Olympiads being useful in the literal sense. Maybe it's about us stopping to demand immediate benefit from everything. About allowing ourselves to learn for the sake of the process itself. For the sake of that feeling when something suddenly becomes clear.

I learned to solve Olympiad problems. And it was useless. And at the same time – priceless. And I still don't know how to reconcile these two words. But, you know what? Maybe I don't need to.

Maybe some things simply exist in this contradiction. And that's okay. We are all a little contradictory. And that's okay.