Why should you do competitive programming?

Training for and participating in programming competitions have several benefits:

1. You will become a better, more efficient, and less error-prone coder.
2. Your technical programming interviews will be a piece of cake. Getting one will be easier as well — Gayle Laakmann McDowell, author of Cracking the Coding Interview, mentioned in a Quora post that “competitive programming [on a resume] usually merits an automatic “yes” for an interview”.
3. You will increase your problem solving abilities that will help you solve, design, and implement difficult real-world programming problems and algorithms in the future.
4. Win prizes and trips to places around the world as you compete with and meet other motivated and smart students.
5. It’s really fun! At least, I hope it will be for you.