PLDCSCWelcome to the official website of the Paul Laurence Dunbar Computer Science Club! PLDCSC is an organization for students interested in studying computer programming beyond school courses. Members hone their skills, compete against other programmers around the world, and help tutor PLD students who need help in computer science courses. Click on the insignia to learn more about the schedule, news, and officers.
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Competitive Team
The competitive programming team is a major part of PLDCSC. Programming competitions require contestants to solve difficult problems with a focus on algorithmic thinking. Team members are expected to train rigorously, both at home and at practice, and to compete regularly. At team meetings, members will participate in competitions, practice solving problems in groups, and request and give help on training problems. The team focuses on the USA Computing Olympiad, a nation-wide individual competition for high-school students. However, members will participate in a variety of other tournaments, including team competitions. For these, members work in groups of roughly three people.
The competitive team is lead by the team captain, who organizes practices, divides the team into smaller groups for competitions, and helps team members train by providing resources and one-on-one help. A complete list of the responsibilities of the team captain can be found in the officers section.
Tutoring
PLDCSC also organizes a tutoring system that helps those with a firm grasp on basic programming concepts tutor students who struggle with the material in Dunbar's Computer Science courses. Meetings are held every Tuesday 5:00PM - 6:00PM at the zoom meeting here. Cancellations and changes will be in the announcements.
Joining PLDCSC
A student interested in joining either part of PLDCSC can do so at any time over the course of the school year by emailing the CS club email or contacting one of the officers. However, there are several important prerequisites that must be satisfied by new members to keep both parts of PLDCSC running smoothly. In order to join the competitive team, a student must have a firm grasp on or be successfully learning at least one of Java, C/C++, or Python. Additionally, he/she must have an understanding of basic algorithmic techniques (binary search, recursion, etc.) and simple data structures (especially arrays).
In order to join the tutoring section of the PLDCSC the student must have a firm grasp on the Java programming language, as that is the language used in most Dunbar computer science courses.