You can think of it as a hobby, almost like a sport. It's more about testing your problem solving skills, and ability to apply learned concepts in novel (and sometimes not so novel) ways.
The type of problems found in competitive programming are closer to the sort of things scientists would be looking at, rather than your normal corporate coder. For example, placing lightning detectors to improve accuracy while minimising the number of detectors. This is something that you're unlikely to find in a normal business, but is fun to solve.
The grand idea is that competitive programming helps you view problems from different angles, to chase optimisations, and to practice application of algorithms and data structures.
Also, team programming challenges illustrate delegation of tasks based on strengths, and often require teamwork to solve difficult problems. This collaboration obviously carries over to general work.
Source: I was a competitive programmer in university
The type of problems found in competitive programming are closer to the sort of things scientists would be looking at, rather than your normal corporate coder. For example, placing lightning detectors to improve accuracy while minimising the number of detectors. This is something that you're unlikely to find in a normal business, but is fun to solve.
The grand idea is that competitive programming helps you view problems from different angles, to chase optimisations, and to practice application of algorithms and data structures.
Also, team programming challenges illustrate delegation of tasks based on strengths, and often require teamwork to solve difficult problems. This collaboration obviously carries over to general work.
Source: I was a competitive programmer in university