‘Unschooled’ girl gets MIT scholarship
Quest for knowledge leads to Olympiad medals
In a country where the intelligence and success of a student is measured by the marks that she obtains in school and college, a Mumbai teenager who does not possess any educational certificate has defied the stereotype by being admitted to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.
Seventeen-year-old Malvika Raj Joshi and her sister Radha did not go through formal schooling to complete their 10th and 12th standard exams.
Yet, the three-time medal winner (two silver in 2014 & 2015 and a bronze in 2016) at International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) has earned a scholarship from MIT to pursue a three-year Bachelor of Science degree.
MIT has a provision for accepting students who are medal winners at various Olympiads and are committed to personal excellence.
Without the 12th standard certificate, she could not get into the elite IITs but, after officials considered her talent, she got into Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) to do an MSc level course as her knowledge was on par with BSc standard.
Says Madhavan Mukund of CMI and National Coordinator of Indian Computing Olympiad, “There is absolutely no question that Malvika’s admission to MIT is based on her superlative achievements at IOI.”
‘Every child is brilliant’
Even as the family’s social circle and media have gone gaga over her entering the portals of MIT, Malvika’s mother, Supriya, is amazed at how everyone thinks that her admission to MIT is the proof of success.
“Malvika was already successful in terms o knowledge and good values that she had acquired. If one’s child does not go to MIT, it does not mean she or he is not successful,” she told Gulf News.
“In my opinion, every child is brilliant in some unique area of interest and marks are not the proof of her brilliance.
“Initially, we had a similar model of school at home but later got rid of it and gave the girls the freedom to explore any subject, sport or hobby that they wanted.” At first, Supriya says her husband was very concerned and so were other family members as the girls were doing extraordinarily well at school.
But when he saw how his daughters were enjoying their journey of learning — from books, music, films, sports, and even mountaineering, he went along with them.
There was a passion in their quest for knowledge and perhaps on this journey.
“Malvika found her calling for computer programming,” says Supriya. “I didn’t know whether she wanted to pursue it as a career but she was very interested. She studied on her own and when she didn’t understand, an MIT student in the US would send her a few topics — all because she was not doing for marks.”
It was a hard decision and took a lot of hard work for the parents to take their kids out of school for this home school as it involved constant guidance and participation, as well as its share of stress. Supriya made up her mind when her experience with an NGO working with cancer patients brought her close to death, especially kids. “Death can change everything and I felt what was important was a child’s happiness.” Marks and degrees didn’t matter if one’s child is not happy.
A Masters in Computer Application, she gave up her lucrative job to focus on her daughters as “money can’t buy happiness”.