Indian-American wins top achievers award
An Indian-American Student has won Siemens Awards For Advanced Placement, America's top achievers honour for her achievements in science and mathematics.
Ramya Rangan, along with another student Albert Wu, two seniors at The Harker School in San Jose, California, became the nation's top achievers in Advanced Placement science and mathematics courses when they were recognised as winners of the 2011 Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement.
Each will receive a USD 5,000 college scholarship. This year, 101 high school students in 50 states –including 96 seniors, 4 juniors and 1 sophomore – were recognised.
The remaining 99 students will each receive a USD 2,000 scholarship.
Established in 1998, the Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement is a signature programme of the Siemens Foundation and is administered by the College Board. Ramya Rangan's interest in math and science originated over a decade ago when she began completing Kumon math problem sets.
In high school, she found that other sciences posed similarly intriguing problems.
She took her first AP class – AP Calculus BC – in the eighth grade.
"AP courses gave me a chance to acquire more in-depth knowledge of various fields, and to learn with gifted peers from incredible teachers", she said. Ramya considers AP Physics C her favourite AP class to date, because it exposed her to interesting physics problems and gave her experience with lab work.
"The lessons I learned on topics like data analysis and scientific writing have been incredibly useful in research work, and I'm sure they will continue to be useful throughout my life."
Ramya plans to study computer science in college, having learned through AP Computer Science that algorithmic thinking appeals to her.
"One of the great things about Advanced Placement is that it allows us to identify and recognise outstanding students like Ramya and Albert," College Board president Gaston Caperton stated in a press release.
"Along with the 99 regional winners, these students represent our best hope for a bright future, where America is a world leader in science, technology, math and engineering—the foundation of the 21st century economy", it said. The state winners as well included a number of Indian-American students.
