Where to start: Sports Programming VS Learning a Programming Language?

Question

Java

About me: a 1st year student of the Department of Automatic Control Systems, who was madly disappointed in academic education.
Problem: I can't decide what to do: sports program (3 times a week for 5 hours + contests) or continue learning Java (independently). Because of my studies, I can choose one thing. I want to stop burdening my parents and earn on my own.
The advantages of the sports program are that with successful performances at contests, I will be listed as a full-time employee in an IT company, work experience will tick and 8 thousand. per month. From the second year, distinguished students are hired, from the third year all.
Pros of learning a languageseem very vague, but I get crazy pleasure from tic-tac-toe, arkanoid or a jumping ball around the screen, written by myself.
PS In the future I'm going to develop applications for mobile devices.

Answer 1

How can you do sports programming without knowing a programming language? Is this some kind of joke?)

Answer 2

If the code flies off your fingers so easily that you can already go to sports ... then why not do what you need in life and what you like? Write something more difficult than Arkanoid or Tetris!
Think about what you like in life. Let's say games. Here you take and write arkanoid. Then Arkanoid with tricky physics. Then a platformer engine - let the enemies be scribbles, but to make it interesting to run and jump. If you love music, come up with some kind of synthesizer or sound converter. If you take pictures - yes, at least a photo cataloger! Etc.
If you are still tight in programming, write whatever is written, but learn to program. Sports, perhaps, will suit you, but, probably, you will either nod off at an incomprehensible lecture, or constantly ask again: how is it? Go to their lecture, see how it feels to you?
Proger work is not an Olympiad. There are many other tasks there: what will it look like from the user's point of view? Should I do O(n) or do O(n²)? Jonathan Blow (author of the great Braid) says: 80% that the simplest algorithm will do, but it is easier to debug. Although you also need to know good algorithms, at least at the level of theory.

Answer 3

my opinion - go to sports programming, there you will be given a good theoretical base, without which the ceiling is riveting arkanoid, or photo cataloguers. Knowledge of algorithms, language at a deep level (and without knowledge of the nuances of the language, compiler and computer, many Olympiad problems cannot be solved), experience in solving problems in a limited time frame, and even hardcore - it pumps the brain unrealistically.