LACC Wins National Math Competition
Every year LACC’s math club students participate in a two-round mathematics competition sponsored by the American Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges (AATYC). The competition was founded in 1970 and today includes over 200 colleges in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda with over 12,000 competitors. In the last decade the LACC team, helmed by their fearless leader, Professor Anatoliy Nikolaychuk, has landed in 1st place five times, most recently in 2014.
Not only did the 2014 team earn a national victory for LACC, but three of our students placed in the top 10 in the individual competition. Earning the top spot at LACC and second place is the nation was student Minh Vu.
L-R: Jin Li, Professor Nikolaychuk, Professor Lee and Jake Kramer
The nation’s number six spot was earned by Lin Li. Lin is 29 years old and originally from the Chinese province of Jilin. He came to America a few years ago, and with very limited English skills enrolled at LACC and has thrived. By next spring he plans on graduating with an A.S. in Electrical Engineering with the hopes of transferring to UCLA or UC Berkley. For Jin, solving mathematics or physics problems is “as natural as a fish swimming or a bird flying”.
Students Jake Kramer and Jin Li
Jake Kramer, LACC’s 9th place victor, is originally from St. Paul, Minnesota. In just three semesters, Jake has taken the entirety of all math classes offered at LACC. This spring he will be taking part in an independent math study as he finishes the remaining classes needed to transfer. Jake has already been accepted into UC Berkley, but is waiting to hear about his acceptance into several other institutions. His goal is to attain a Ph.D. in Mathematics, specifically number theory, and parlay that into a research career.
Last month, the 2014 team and individual victors were given their national awards and then immediately went back to work, participating in round one of the 2015 competition. Minh, Lin and Jake all participated again this year and early results have them leading the pack. New to the club this year is 13 year old LACC student Kathy Lee, who is also a student at Walter Reed Middle School. She has always been competitive in math, so she started taking night classes, two nights a week, in Calculus. Within the LACC club team, Kathy placed fourth out of 41 college age students! She also recently received the merit-based Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship, a prestigious national award given to only 30 students a year, which will pay her tuition to the high school of her choice. Kathy aspires to be an engineer and attend Cal Tech or MIT.
The second round of the 2015 AATYC competition will be held in the spring and finalists announced shortly after. Congratulations to all of LACC’s math club students!
