Teen thought university would be more stressful
Thirteen-year-old aced first semester with grades above 91 per cent
Elementary school was excruciating for Vivian Xie.
At 7 years old, Xie knew how to add, subtract and multiply negative numbers and decimals while her classmates were learning patterns and shapes.
“I was surpassing them in terms of the amount of knowledge I knew,” Xie said in a phone interview.
Xie had learned to read and write Mandarin at just 2 years old, before her family moved to Charlottetown from China.
Now, at 13, Xie has wrapped her first year at the University of Prince Edward Island.
The mature, friendly and softspoken teen was just 12 when she began her university studies — and is on track to finish a biology degree before she can get behind the wheel of a car.
So far, university has been a breeze for Xie: She finished her first semester with grades above 91 per cent.
“I was expecting a bit more stress than high school,” Xie said. “Sometimes I find (in university) there was too little to do.” When she wasn’t cramming for exams, Xie said she read ahead. She picked up a couple of credits for a minor in anthropology.
Despite being incredibly advanced, Xie says her childhood wasn’t that much different from other children.
But instead of playing sports like her classmates, Xie said she spent most afternoons in the library. She likes reading, painting and drawing, and ping pong.
Xie says her love for learning came from her grandmother, a high school biology teacher.
“She taught me, at a very young age, material from junior high. And she did all this without me knowing.
“We’d go to the park and she would make up a game and I wouldn’t even know that I was learning.”
Xie said her parents never pressured her to get ahead in her studies.
“As long as she stays on the right path, it doesn’t matter to me. I want her to be healthy, be happy and have some form of contribution to society,” Hai Yan Jiang said in an interview in which Xie served as translator.