Aritra Banerjee, a junior at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, is a national champion.

He achieved that elite status when he placed first in North South Foundation’s 2023 Computer Science Bee this summer. 

Being “very” passionate about computer science, Banerjee was looking for more opportunities to be involved in the subject. He turned to the internet and the people around him.

Banerjee is a spelling tutor at North South Foundation, who runs contests with the intention of giving money to underprivileged children in India. Working for the company, he heard about their Computer Science Bee. 

This competition is held for students in 9th through 12th grade, and the test consists of 30 multiple-choice questions about “data structures such as linked lists and binary search trees.” Other questions have students analyze code.

Banerjee first had to compete and score well in the regional competition that took place in Edison, New Jersey, last April in order to qualify for the national competition.

The regional competition had 200 participants, and only 40 qualified for nationals. Banerjee finished in third place.

He headed to San Francisco for a week in late August of last summer to compete in the national competition.  

“I wasn’t sure of my expectations going in,” Banerjee said, “but I was expecting to do my best.”

Banerjee did do his best, as he won the first place prize. He got 23 out of 30 questions correct. 

A few hours after the national competition, an award ceremony took place, where Banerjee was named champion of the 2023 National Computer Science Bee.

“I’m very happy to have won,” Banerjee said. 

He continues to pursue his passion for computer science by taking classes at the high school, including Computer Science 1 and 2, AP Computer Science A and Advanced Topics in Computer Science.

Banerjee plans to major in computer science in college, where he  hopes to student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.