The Fields Medals are awarded every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40 “and honor not just past achievements but also the promise of future breakthroughs.” One of the individuals awarded a Fields Medal was June Huh of Princeton. Dr. Huh had considered himself mediocre in math growing up and only in his last year of college did he become reinterested in math, and then did a Master’s with a Fields Medalist before applying for doctoral programs in math.
“I was fairly confident that despite all my failed math courses in my undergrad transcript, I had an enthusiastic letter from a Fields Medalist, so I would be accepted from many, many grad schools.”
All but one rejected him — the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign put him on a waiting list before finally accepting him.
I find the awarding of this medal to Dr. Huh as a pleasant example of how people can be successful without knowing at age 17 what they want to be and having a long resume to support it. It also goes to show that a student that then goes to a school whose graduate program is ranked #21 by USNWR (and was denied acceptance to all other US grad programs) ends up winning a Fields Medal. Obviously Dr. Huh is an exceptional individual, but I think that his story has a lot to say to students and parents who experience a lot of stress in high school (and college) about career and college preparation.
These were my sources:
The general article:
The article specific to Dr. Huh:
