Education
At the age of nine, Lawrence gained an O-level in mathematics, setting a new age record, later surpassed in 2001 when Arran Fernandez successfully sat GCSE mathematics aged five. Also at the age of nine she achieved a Grade A at A-level Pure Mathematics, an age record which stood until 2009 when Zohaib Ahmed passed A level mathematics with an A grade aged just turned nine years old. In 1981 she 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.
At Oxford, her father continued to be actively involved in her education, accompanying her to all lectures and tutorials. Lawrence completed her bachelor's degree in two years, instead of the normal three, and graduated in 1985 at the age of 13 with a starred first and special commendation. Attracting considerable press interest, she became the youngest British person to gain a first-class degree, and the youngest to graduate from the University of Oxford in modern times.
Lawrence followed her first degree with a second degree in physics in 1986 and a D.Phil in mathematics at Oxford in June 1989, at the age of 17. Her thesis title was Homology representations of braid groups and her thesis adviser was Sir Michael Atiyah.
Read more about this topic: Ruth Lawrence
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“There used to be housekeepers with more energy than sense—the everlasting scrubber; the over-neat woman. Since the better education of woman has come to stay, this type of woman has disappeared almost, if not entirely.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)
“A good education ought to help people to become both more receptive to and more discriminating about the world: seeing, feeling, and understanding more, yet sorting the pertinent from the irrelevant with an ever finer touch, increasingly able to integrate what they see and to make meaning of it in ways that enhance their ability to go on growing.”
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“Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)