I was born in Gyumri in 1991, a place where bright and diligent people have dwelled for centuries, regardless of the numerous disasters and hardship they went through. Soon afterwards we moved to a small town near Gyumri called Maralik, which not only witnessed my adolescence but also laid the foundation for the worldview I am still holding. I attended School No.2 of Maralik until 7th grade. Those wonderful years taught me how important education is for Armenians and especially for kids from small towns and villages, meanwhile providing the basics of knowledge that greatly shaped my future pathways. During these years and later, while already living in Yerevan, I participated and won twice the famous intellectual TV game for teens We Know That You Know.

In 2004 I moved to Yerevan and started attending School No.172 after Hakob Oshakan, where I kept on studying with excellence. In the same year, I participated in the radio-game Mind to Mind, during which I competed with folks from other schools and won it with outstanding results. In 8th grade, i.e. in 2006 I found and read a few wonderful textbooks on Chemistry, and very soon I understood that I really like that magic branch of science. It didn’t take long to have my first success in the field as I won the 1st Prize at the National Chemistry Olympiad of Armenia.

At that time, I realized that I needed higher standards of education and better academic environment and transferred to Anania Shirakatsi Lycee. The 2 years spent there were most prolific for me not only from the point of my academic successes, but also with regard to the emphasis that school puts on empowering individuals, who appreciate knowledge most and are willing to explore new levels of cognition, to serve the society. To name but a few awards I got during this period:

• 2nd Prize at the National Chemistry Olympiad of Armenia, 2007
• Bronze Medal at the 41st Mendeleev Olympiad, Minsk, Belarus, 2007
• Silver Medal at the 39th International Chemistry Olympiad, Moscow, Russia, 2007
• 1st Prize at the National Chemistry Olympiad of Armenia, 2008
• Bronze Medal at the 42nd Mendeleev Olympiad, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2008
• Bronze Medal at the 39th International Chemistry Olympiad, Budapest, Hungary, 2008

I also participated twice during these years in Open Olympiad օf Former USSR Countries organized by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation and held in Moscow, and won 2nd and 3rd Prizes. I graduated from the Lycee in 2008 with Gold Medal for outstanding performance throughout the years of study there and highest grades in the final exams. In autumn, I started attending Yerevan State Medical University, where I learnt lots of fundamental subjects, showed excellent results in all exams and finally understood that higher education in Armenia is in a catastrophic condition requiring many reforms.

Furthermore, in 2008 I was granted with the 1st Prize in the category of The Best High School Student handed over by the President of RA at an annual educational contest held by Synopsys Armenia. In 2010, I participated in the famous TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and won it.

At high school due to participating in international Olympiads and meting many students from overseas, I realized that only by studying at the best universities in the world I would be able to reach my career dreams, as well as help the motherland to thrive. I passed all the admission exams and finally in 2011 got admitted to one of the top research institutions, MIT.

Currently I am a freshman at MIT, planning for a double major in Biology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences.