The math prodigy

GHCHS Junior Emma Martirossian loves math and started taking college math classes in third grade.

Junior Emma Martirossian loves mathematics because it is straightforward, logical, and easy. To her friends, she is the person to go to for help with math or for fun adventures as she enjoys solving problems as well as hanging out with her friends at the movies or at sleepovers.

Martirossian’s aptitude for mathematics was revealed early in her life as she was born into a family with a long line of math professors. Her father made numbers her toys and taught her the multiplication tables when she was two. By the time she was in elementary school, Martirossian had daily math lessons from her father in addition to what she was learning in school.

One day, Martirossian’s father was grading a stack of college Algebra tests and decided to give Emma the test to see how well she would perform. She did remarkably well, considering she was only eight years old, so her father decide to enroll her in community college to take college math courses.

It took a lot of paperwork and convincing to make her school administrators and the college agree to enroll a third grader in college-level Algebra, but the school agreed and Martirossian was enrolled during her summer after third grade.

“On the first day of class, everyone was curious about me because I was the only child in a room filled with college students. When asked how old I was, I said I had just turned nine because the first day of school was on my ninth birthday,” Martirossian said.

Even in a college level class, Martirossian proved herself to still be above the average student. Once, the professor wrote a problem on the board and said that if anyone in the class could solve it, he would let them all out an hour early. Everybody in the class turned to Martirossian. She succeeded in solving the problem. She went on to pass the class with flying colors, and her professor recommended her for Geometry.

Martirossian continued to excel in math, taking college courses every year except for eighth grade because her school offered an Advanced Placement (AP) class for Physics B. Additionally, since her first day at Granada Hills, Martirossian has been taking AP math courses such as Calculus AB, Calculus BC, and Statistics.

It was here at GHCHS that Martirossian found a family in the school’s Robotics team where she is the treasurer and master scout. For Martirossian, Robotics is a dream come true as she works with people who have the same passions and interests as her. Through Robotics, she has met some of her best friends and all of her favorite memories are somehow connected to it.

Although Martirossian is going to a different high school next year, Robotics and GHCHS have impacted her life so much that she is going to come back and help the team, providing aid and support. She calls Robotics her best life experience and has no thought of abandoning it.

Although Martirossian seems like a genius, she says that she is a normal girl who loves to shop at Sephora, go to Starbucks with her friends (from Robotics, of course), and get involved in community. She participated in the march from Little Armenia to the Turkish consulate in Los Angeles on April 24, with 130,000 Armenians in hopes of gaining recognition for the Armenian Genocide.

Even though Martirossian may be very advanced in mathematics, she has many other activities she enjoys; it is all of the things that Martirossian does, more than just being extremely great with numbers that make her who she truly is.