Four years after becoming the world’s youngest psychologist, 17-year-old Dafne Almazán is once again making history. The Mexican-born student is now also the first under-18 person to be enrolled in a post-graduate degree at Harvard University in the last 100 years.
She will earn a master’s in math education. “We always consider math difficult, but it’s something that’s part of our lives and we need strategies so that we can teach [the subject] and get children interested,” she told EFE.
In the past, Dafne has said that she hopes to use her degrees to help other gifted children, who sometimes struggle with low self-esteem. A study conducted by Centro de Atención al Talent (Cedat) in 2013 found that despite an estimated 1 million gifted kids in Mexico, only 4 percent learn how to harness their talents as they reach adulthood. Factors like bullying in schools, for example, can leads to disinterest in academics, according to USA Today.
Her brother, Andrew, who is also gifted, also encountered these issues growing up. “I’m trying to prevent other children from having to go through the same experiences as I did,” Andrew told USA Today. “…Prodigies are often wrongly diagnosed with ADHD, and parents have no idea how to deal with them. Many are rejected by their classmates and their teachers.”