Home-schooled after class VII, no class X or XII certificate, yet a 17-year-old Malvika Raj Joshi has made it to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) thanks to her computer programming genius.
A mother's dogma to break stereotypes and the self-belief of a teenage girl has proven "merit" is above "marks".
Malvika is a two-time silver and one-time bronze medal winner at International Olympiad of Informatics(IOI), commonly known as Programming Olympiad. It was these medals that fulfilled Malvika's dreams of pursuing research in Computer Science at MIT. Unlike IITs, the Boston institute has a provision for students who have excelled in the Olympiads and have offered her a scholarship.
Recalling the early days, Malvika said, "when I started unschooling, that was 4 years back, I explored many different subjects. Programming was one of them. I found programming interesting and I used to give more time to it than to other subjects, so, I started liking it at that time."
Malvika's candidature in elite Indian institutes like IIT was rejected since they have strict rules regarding class XII exams.
Chennai Mathematical Institute acknowledged that brilliance where she was enrolled in an M.Sc course and got a chance to represent India at IOI.
"There is absolutely no question that Malvika's admission to MIT is based on her superlative achievements at IOI. It is a credit to MITs flexibility that they can offer admission to a student who demonstrates excellent intellectual potential despite having no formal high school credentials," said CMI's Madhavan Mukund, National Co-ordinator of Indian Computing Olympiad, as quoted by India Today.
However, Madhavan pointed out that Malvika is not a product of the system but despite it.
"This is possible only for a student whose academic achievements are outstanding, which is the case with Malvika's performance at IOI," he said.
But this young Mumbai girl's fascinating story starts about four years ago when her mother Supriya took an unbelievably tough decision of home-schooling her daughter. She was in class VII at Dadar Parsee Youth Assembly School in Mumbai and doing exceedingly well in academics when her mother decided to pull her out of school. Her mother, who believed happiness was more important than conventional knowledge, simulated a classroom and also structured an academic course for Malvika. Change begins at home, indeed.
Perhaps this is why we don't have the "deserved."
