Prodigies

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

Hou Yifan:

Chess prodigy: At the age of 12, Hou became the youngest player ever to participate in the FIDE Women's World Championship (Yekaterinburg 2006) and the Chess Olympiad (Torino 2006). In June 2007, she became China's youngest National Women's Champion ever. She achieved the titles of Woman FIDE Master in January 2004, Woman Grandmaster in January 2007, she would have qualified for the International Master title in September 2008 by reaching the final of the Women's World Championship but in August 2008 she had already qualified for the Grandmaster title by achieving her 3rd GM norm. In 2010, she became the youngest Women's World Chess Champion in history by winning the Women's World Championship in Hatay, Turkey, at the age of 16. She lost her title in 2012 but regained it in 2013.

In the most recent (February 2014) FIDE rating list, Hou is ranked as the No. 1 girl player in the world, the No. 2 female player (after Judit Polgár) and the No. 6 junior player of either sex. She is only the third female chess player to achieve a FIDE rating of over 2600.

Arfa Karim:

A Pakistani student and computer prodigy who in 2004 at the age of nine years became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).
I'm sorry to report that she died in 2011 at the age of 16 of cardiac arrest following an epileptic seizure.

Kathleen Holtz:

Kathleen Holtz is a lawyer from California who passed the California State Bar Examination in 2007 to become the state's youngest lawyer at the age of 18. Holtz entered the UCLA School of Law at the age of 15 after graduating from California State University, Los Angeles, which she started at the age of 10. She worked for the law firm TroyGould PC from 2007 to 2010.

Ruth Lawrence:

In 1981 Ruth Lawrence passed the Oxford University interview entrance examination in mathematics, coming first out of all 530 candidates sitting the examination, and joining St Hugh's College in 1983 at the age of just twelve.

Promethea Pythaitha:

A child genius with an IQ of 173. She started reading at age 1, began learning college-level calculus and was profiled by a CBS News 48 Hours special on "Whiz Kids!" at age 7, and at age 13 became the youngest student to complete work for a bachelor's degree from Montana State University in Mathematics.

Mikaela Fudolig:

Fudolig graduated at 16 years old as a summa cum laude with a B.S. in Physics with a general weighted average of 1.099 from the University of the Philippines. She has also received a degree from the National Institute of Physics.

From Mikaela's address as Valedictorian - Today, the nation needs brave, defiant pioneers to reverse our nation’s slide to despair. Today, we must call upon the spirit that beat the tracks. Today, we must present an alternative way of doing things.

Do NOT just take courage, for courage is not enough. Instead, be BRAVE! It will take bravery to go against popular wisdom, against the clichéd expectations of family and friends. It will take bravery to gamble your future by staying in the country and try to make a prosperous life here. It might help if for a start, we try to see why our Korean friends are flocking to our country. Why, as many of us line up for immigrant visas in various embassies, they get themselves naturalized and settle here. Do they know something we don’t?

Do NOT just be strong in your convictions, for strength is not enough. Instead, DEFY the pressure to lead a comfortable, but middling life. Let us lead this country from the despair of mediocrity. Let us not seek to do well, but strive to EXCEL in everything that we do. This, so others will see us as a nation of brains of the highest quality, not just of brawn that could be had for cheap.

Take NOT the road less traveled. Rather, MAKE new roads, BLAZE new trails, FIND new routes to your dreams. Unlike the track-beaters in campus who see where they’re going, we may not know how far we can go. But if we are brave, defiant searchers of excellence, we will go far. Explore possibilities, that others may get a similar chance. I have tried it myself. And I’m speaking to you now.

[ismnotwasm]

1. Nice!

Interesting given at one time so much of what women can do was considered impossible



IQ of 173? Yikes!