Putman Fellow and 2017 IMO Gold Medalist Junyao Peng talks to audience members about how math students can both succeed in competitions and have fun along the way

On Saturday, January 9th the American Center for Math Education (ACME) concluded its second of five webinars for this month. The guest speaker of this webinar was Junyao Peng and the topic at hand revolved around how to make math fun in a competitive environment. If you did not get the chance to attend this webinar, no worries! This article is here to provide you with all of the highlights from Junyao’s presentation. 

Personal Background

Junyao began the webinar with a brief introduction on his personal background and experience with math. Junyao Peng was born in the Southwestern part of China and moved to Beijing when he was six years old. At around fourth grade, he started participating in math events and by seventh grade he was deeply involved in the highly competitive spectrum of Mathematics. 

Fast forward to high school and Junyao had moved to the United States where he was enrolled in the Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science (PRISMS). One of the best high school math programs in the country. 

Today, Junyao is a senior at MIT and his focus of study is Mathematics. Even as an undergraduate student his math career in college is loaded with success. He won the gold medal at the 2017 International Math Olympiad (IMO) as part of team USA. In addition, he was named a Putman Fellow during his freshman year at MIT and had the honors of competing in the annual Putnam Mathematical Competition. Arguably one of the hardest math competitions in the world. 

Junyao noticed that as he got more involved with the competitive side of math it was sometimes easy to forget why Mathematics is fun. Because of this, he created a strategy for how to have fun with math on a daily basis while at the same time maintaining a competitive mindset. 

Enjoy the Learning Aspect 

When you are in the middle of preparing for a math competition, it is easy to become hyper focused on solely winning the event. However, in order to ensure that your passion for math does not burn out. One must never forget the fun and rewarding feeling of learning a new math concept or strategy. 

“Sometimes I would get frustrated when I could not solve a problem or do well at a competition,” Junyao said. “There’s always going to be problems that I won’t be able to solve and that’s okay. As long as I have the chance to learn new fun and exciting techniques it makes the experience worth it.” 

A piece of advice that Junyao gave was to change the approach of how you view math competitions. Of course it is a priority to perform well and finish as high up as possible. The rewarding feeling of winning an event that you worked so hard to prepare for is fun in itself. But you should also not forget about the little things that make math competitions enjoyable. 

“Are the prizes and good grades the main reason I do math? Of course not” Junyao said. “Traveling to the events, exploring new cities, and hanging out with friends were definitely the most memorable parts of the competition.”

Utilize Math Learning Programs 

Another way to keep math competition training fun is to enroll in different types of math learning programs. These programs can help make the math material easier to digest and reduce the amount of hours of staring at a problem and being frustrated at how difficult it is to solve. In addition, they are a great way to make new friends! 

“While in the programs, I was able to make new friends who would help me learn new techniques,” Junyao said. “It is always nice to make friends who share the same interest in math as you.” 

Take Breaks and Do Other Activities That Make You Happy

When it comes to learning new math concepts, it is always quality over quantity. Junyao noted during the presentation that it was always inefficient for him to focus on solving math problems for long periods of time. 

“Taking a break to digest the material and coming back to it later with a fresher mind is always a good idea,” Junyao said. “It is more important to gain something from doing math than simply practicing for a set amount of time. I would rather learn a new technique in 30 minutes than not learn anything new from practicing for five hours.” 

In addition, just because you are a highly competitive math participant does not mean that you cannot enjoy the other hobbies in your life that make you happy. Sometimes stepping away from math to do other enjoyable activities can benefit your math learning process in the long run. 

“I did a lot of other things besides math competition prep such as table tennis and soccer,” Junyao said. 

Wrap Up 

The next webinar that the ACME will be hosting is on Saturday, January 16th from 5:00pm-5:30pm Pacific Standard Time. The speaker for this webinar will be Quanlin Chen, a 2020 IMO Gold Medalist. The topic that Quanlin will be discussing is math learning from an early age. You can register for this webinar here!

In addition, if you would like to watch a recording of the webinar presentation by Junyao Peng. Simply click on the link here.

As a final point, if you are interested in what Think Academy has to offer and would like to enroll your child in one of our classes. Make sure to sign up for our free 1-on-1 evaluation! 

Think Academy’s one-on-one evaluation contains a 15-question evaluation exam, a one hour in-depth analysis, and a 15-minute teacher-to-parent discussion. After the evaluation, a customized study plan will be provided so that all of your child’s learning needs are met.