  In this short paper we report on student programming competition results by
students from the Computer Science Department (COSC) of Okanagan College (OC)
and discuss the achieved results from an educational point of view. We found
that some freshmen and sophomore students in diploma and degree programs are
very capable and eager to be involved in applied research projects as early as
the second semester, and into local and international programming competitions
as well. Our observation is based on the last 2 educational years, beginning
2015 when we introduced programming competitions to COSC students. Students
reported that participation in competitions give them motivation to effectively
learn in their programming courses, inspire them to learn deeper and more
thoroughly, and help them achieve better results in their classes.
