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Got GREAT news tonight!!! Niece getting her Doctorate

J

JD Seller

Well-known Member
My niece/step-cousin called to wish us Merry Christmas and to invite us to her graduation. She will be graduating in the spring with a Doctorate in Applied Mathematics from MIT. She just got her notice she will have enough credits. The real amazing part of this is she will only be 21 years old then. She graduated from high school at 16 and had her masters from Iowa State at 19. She was taking college classes while in high school. She is the smartest person I have ever been around much. I guess there is another amazing thing too. She has a straight 4.0 average since junior high.

That will be this coming spring. She wanted to ask us early so we can plan it out with my wife's health issues.

Her mother is one of the four young girls my Grand Parents adopted from Vietnam. Her Father is one of my younger brothers. So what is her correct relation??? LOL She would be my cousin through her Mother, if she where a blood relative. She is my niece since she is my brother's daughter. ???????

She is SMART, pretty, and vivacious. She embraces life to its fullest. When I am around people like her I can see great hope for the future.
 
That is tremendous news. Success is a driven element, not a coasing event. Very best of good fortune to her. Jim
 
good news. congratulations to her.
you are so right about hope for the future involving folks like her. we depend on them to help this country as we slowly circle the drain.
 
That's great news! And Mathematics is a field with many opportunities.
The question is "What's she going to do now?"
If she's going to work prepare her for what will come.
When I graduated with a BS in physics had many offers of employment and elected to continue in school. Graduated 2 years later with a MS in high energy physics and had no offers. One company finally told me I had a great education with no work experience and hired me at the same wages I could have gotten with the BS. The advantage of the higher degree was promotions came faster. All I had to do was prove myself.

Tell her CONGRAULATIONS.
 
nice christmas present hope you can be there.
in farming there are many crops that can be sowed and reaped this one is a child and its education with time and effort a truly great harvest it nice to watch them grow and mature
 
Its funny you should say that about promotions. I saw the same thing in the engineering dept of a high tech company I worked for. The problem was that those that had just a BS and were competent hardly ever went anywhere (Putt principle I believe in many cases) but those with advanced degrees, no matter how incompetent always got promoted. The problem was that everyone noticed that one would get promoted on cerdentials over accomplishment so at any given time, when the head of engineering was away (which was often) half of the staff would be in their cubes doing homework (for classes) rather that the job they were being paid to do. No one much gave a c$*p about their job performance because they knew it wouldn't get them anywhere. Added degree was almost instant promotion.
Still, doctorate at 21? I'm impressed.
 
I hope she doesn't have a lifetime's worth of debt to go along with it. What is she hoping to use the degree for or towards? My brother got his PhD from MIT in "applied mathmatics" when he was 21. His wife has two PhDs from Georgia of the ex Soviet Union (Razmadze Mathematical Institute, Georgian Academy of Sciences, Tbilisi, Georgia ანდრია რაზმაძის მათემატიკის ინსტიტუტი).

My brother died last year in Cambridge at the age of 64. Just down the road from MIT. He never cut the cord. At that time - I don't think he ever held a job that had anything to do with his degree. He got paid to speak at MIT now and then and also had a small software company. He had been offered jobs teaching math that he declined. He also put forth many theories on algorithms which I will never understand. His widow went back to Tiblisi, Georgia where she now teaches math.

I'm just curious - considering the expense of any Phd progam - what her plan is?
 
VADAVE,
CONGRAULATIONS.

I was thinking the same thing. She is over qualified for most jobs. However, PHD's are needed if she wants to teach at MIT.

So, you have a masters in Physics? What did you do with it?

George
 
VADAVE: She has a lot of job offers. The one she is most excited about is from the NSA. Her specialty is number/group theory. In short she liked codes. She will have a BS in computer analysis also. The biggest draw back is she does not want to live on the EAST or West coast. She wants to be within a day driving distance of home. She is trying to line up something in the Chicago or ST. Louis area.

She may also continue her education. My Grand Father left all the grand kids a trust for education. With the scholar ships she has gotten she still has a lot of her education money left.

She has an offer of a fellowship at Cambridge University. (Yes the one in England) She has been there for some school related stuff. She likes it there and her mother is really pushing for her to go for awhile. Little Susie(my niece) loves the idea of what she could learn there but is unsettle about being that far from home.

I told her to do what she wants to do but to remember that there are few places that can challenge her like Cambridge would. Her Mother's and Aunt's example of success in another country is in her mind as well.

It is kind of funny that while many have the problem of limited opportunity she is faced with the opposite in that she has so many choices that it is hard for her to decide what she really wants to do. You have to remember she is only 21. Being super smart still does not give you the life experiences that age does.

The family is very proud of her.
 
jdemaris:
Like I posted below she still has some of her college funds left. She had several advantages in scholarships:

1) She is a female that is good in math. The system is focused on turning out more women with Math degrees.

2) Her having 50% Asian heritage opened up a lot of scholarships too.

3) Her test scores and grades opened a lot of other stuff up.

So like I posted she still has a good bit of my Grand Father's education trust left.

I kind of hope she takes the fellowship she has been offered. That is one of those life changing opportunities. If she does not take it I fear she will always question that decision.
 
Its a great accomplishment, no matter what happens in life, its something no one or thing can take away. My mother did a similar thing graduated early like that, went to a highly respected college to become an educator/teacher, and had her masters at the time most would have been just graduating with a bs, stayed in the same school system for most of her career and retired very comfortably. My friends daughter is following a similar path, on scholarship, the hard work pays off, no guarantee on the other end, its what you make of it, but this does lay a solid foundation to work off of.
 
Congratulations to her. I have a cousin like that too (PhD in Math from Harvard when she was 21). I can't imagine what goes on inside a head like that.

Suggest that she negotiate with NSA to start after the Cambridge gig. They'll probably need several months to get a security clearance anyway, might even put her on the payroll in the mean time.
 
Congratulations to her. Lots of hard work went into those accomplishments. As for the future just tell her to follow her heart , we all need to be happy doing whatever.
My niece, the only one, graduated from Harvard with a MS. Took a couple years off and taught class in Puerto Rico.
Came back and started on her Doctorate but the offer of a very good six figure job at a Fortune 500 company, even though no school debts, was too much for her to pass up.
 
Our DIL is Vietnamese; She is an M.D.; son is an electrical engineer. Can't help wondering what grandson will do - but he also seems to be a bit of a charmer.
 
In my book Adopted becomes relative. She has come a long way in her life. So no blood is some times better than bad blood. Congrat. to all of you. Don't forget to get her out on that tractor for some math work. LOL
 

It is always great to see someone live to their full potential! :D

It really makes most of the whiners that say " they are disadvantaged" for what ever reason, look very ignorant because they just don't want to try. I still love what Bill Cosby had to say about all of that.

I feel like like I'm more like Jethro Bodine having to naught naught everything...lol :oops:
 
How can she possibly know when she will earn her Doctorate if she has not presented and defended her thesis?
 
Intelligence and ambition are two qualities we don't always see linked together. I'm happy for her. She'll do OK in life. Jim
 
Congrats to her upon getting the degree and much better at a young age. I didn't get my doctorate until in my forties grrrrrrrrrrrrrr too dern old lol

John T
 
As with your brother it is strange the paths that academic success can lead one down. In my teens my best friend was like that (aced his physics college entrance exam with a perfect score. I never heard of that). Entered Yale at 17 taking pre-med. Worked hard at being successful at everything, even being popular. Partied too much one night and killed himself in a drunk driving accident at age 21. His sister was just as successful. Went to Yale then later Harvard law school. Got an outrageous paying job as chief council to a major US company. Last I heard from her she was divorced, unemployed 'by choice' and seeming to follow the same course as the 'Cat Lady' from the Simpsons. I read somewhere that this can happen to these "gifted" type of people when there seems to be nothing left to challange them in life. I feel so bad for them because I loved the whole family.
 
JD, the nicer side of me says she is a young lady who is going somewhere, and she has my deepest respect and congratulations.

However, the onery side of me says it will make her an above average cashier at Mickey D's.....
 
So it sounds like you are coming to Ma. In the spring allot of history around here just try to take some time to see the nicer parts of the state not just the eastern part. Sound like she will go far in life with the smarts and drive she must have
 
LAA She already has that done they where giving her some trouble on some of her humanity credits she transfered from Iowa State. She had to retake a few courses. She thought she would have to take some classes this summer to finish. She just found out last week that they decided to honor some of credits she already had.
 
Tell her congratulations from a fellow applied mathematics and statistician. Wish I would have done my PhD I quit at MS.

She can go just about anywhere she wants especially with a background in number theory and the computer science background. Have lots of friends in the actuarial field and teaching at the college level.

Rick
 
Thesis is presented in the final semester of any graduate program, when successfully defended your through, nothing remains to be done. Undergraduate credits have nothing to do with it because the Doctoral or graduate program is a seperate undertaking entirely. In other words, if the thesis dissertation and defense have been successfully undertaken then the program is complete, maybe she has unfinished research that was not related to her thesis and she is going to finish it up at MIT.
 
(quoted from post at 11:06:04 12/23/13) Thesis is presented in the final semester of any graduate program, when successfully defended your through, nothing remains to be done. Undergraduate credits have nothing to do with it because the Doctoral or graduate program is a separate undertaking entirely. In other words, if the thesis dissertation and defense have been successfully undertaken then the program is complete, maybe she has unfinished research that was not related to her thesis and she is going to finish it up at MIT.
Click to expand...

LAA: I am not sure what the hold up was. She just thought she would need the summer to finish and found out she is going to be done in the spring. That is really all I know about the exact schooling stuff. LOL I do know her Thesis involves people at MIT, Iowa State, and Cambridge. It is some joint project. This is the reason she has been offered the fellow ship. It is a continuation of her Thesis.

I will be blunt. I took high school math/algebra. I actually got good grades and liked it. I remember almost NONE of it. I was trying to help my Grand daughter this fall with some SIMPLE problems. I was less than helpful to her.

So when my Niece goes off on what she is doing my eyes glaze over real fast and I get a head ache. LMAO
 
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