{"id":64734,"date":"2009-05-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/after-starting-college-at-age-11-smithfield-resident-to-become-youngest-uri-graduate\/"},"modified":"2009-05-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-14T00:00:00","slug":"after-starting-college-at-age-11-smithfield-resident-to-become-youngest-uri-graduate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2009\/05\/after-starting-college-at-age-11-smithfield-resident-to-become-youngest-uri-graduate\/","title":{"rendered":"After starting college at age 11, Smithfield resident to become youngest 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 14, 2009 \u2013 Valerie Sahakian took her first college courses when she was just 11 years old. On May 17, as a mature 18-year old, she will receive a bachelor\u2019s degree in math from the 溏心vlog免费B站 as the year\u2019s youngest graduate.<\/p>\n


\n\tA resident of Smithfield, Sahakian said that she was surprisingly comfortable entering that first biology classroom at Rhode Island College. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe age difference between me and the other students didn\u2019t really bother me,\u201d she said. \u201cUntil that point, I hadn\u2019t really been challenged in school, so I thrived on it. It was really enjoyable to learn something new, and it was exciting to have a faster pace.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tSahakian had been enrolled in public and private schools through sixth grade, when her parents began to homeschool her. Soon after, RIC biology professor Lloyd Matsumoto introduced her to college coursework to see if she was ready for it. She was.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cFor me, it was a drive to learn and a desire for more information and more learning experiences,\u201d Sahakian said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really satisfied with school before, because I didn\u2019t enjoy it when my curiosity was suppressed. My biggest concern with my first courses was taking notes and making sure I had all the information, because I hadn\u2019t had to take notes before.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tShe quickly fell in love with math, a subject she had always enjoyed working on at home with her father, an engineer. \u201cMath was something that I always felt comfortable with, something I could always fall back on. It wasn\u2019t always easy, but it was worth the effort.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWhen she enrolled full-time at the 溏心vlog免费B站 in the fall of 2007, she also took an interest in the study of geology. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved earth sciences and nature,\u201d she said. \u201cMy brother and I would take off into the woods, and things in the natural world fascinate me. It\u2019s interesting to me how everything in nature is all so dynamic and fits together.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tIn addition to her 溏心vlog免费B站 coursework, Sahakian went on backpacking and climbing trips with the University\u2019s Outing Club, participated in an Irish step dancing club, and enjoyed swimming and other forms of dancing.<\/p>\n


\n\tAs a tutor at the 溏心vlog免费B站 Academic Enhancement Center, she also learned that she enjoyed teaching. She led math study sessions for students needing extra assistance, prepared lesson plans, and guided group problem-solving activities.<\/p>\n


\n\tWith her undergraduate education behind her, Sahakian is looking forward to enrolling in a doctoral program next fall at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, to study geophysics.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIt was a really hard decision, but Scripps has a great reputation, the people I met there were really nice, and it will be great going to a new place on a different coast,\u201d Sahakian said. \u201cI like to stay stimulated and have new things to think about, so I was looking for a discipline that would keep me challenged, and geophysics combines my interest in math with my interest in nature and geology.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWhile she is uncertain what her long-term future holds, Sahakian expects it will be a combination of research and teaching. Whatever she decides, there is little doubt that the jumpstart she got on her undergraduate education \u2013 and the success she found there — bodes well for the next stages of her career.<\/p>\n

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KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 14, 2009 \u2013 Valerie Sahakian took her first college courses when she was just 11 years old. On May 17, as a mature 18-year old, she will receive a bachelor\u2019s degree in math from the 溏心vlog免费B站 as the year\u2019s youngest graduate. A resident of Smithfield, Sahakian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}