Is competitive programming really useful?

Benefits of practicing Competitive Programming while in college:

• Learn problem-solving: This is one of the most important skills that you need to develop in order to succeed in almost anything. As a human, you will certainly face challenges in life. To counter these challenges, you need to know how to find the easiest solution in the fastest possible time. That's exactly what Competitive Programming teaches you. One may argue that the analogy is wrong. Read the next point for that.
• Helps develop the never-give-up attitude: Competitive Programming teaches you how to fight until the problem is solved. It helps you learn persistence. This is an extremely important skill - not giving up, even when the situation is against you.
• Helps improve your ability to write code: This is kind of self-explanatory. You practice more, you learn more.
• Helps you stand out of the crowd: If you are from a "not-so-well-known" institute, building a solid Competitive Programming is a great way to attract recruiters. SPOJ, CodeChef, CodeForces, and TopCoder are the 4 most popular platforms. Others include HackerEarth and HackerRank. InterviewBit is another one. Try building great profiles on these platforms. You can put that on your resume as an achievement.