11-year-old takes math classes at UNC

MarcAndrew Laurenvil was the only student to get a perfect score on his multivariable calculus final last semester.

But there is something else that sets him apart from his classmates at UNC: he’s still in middle school.

Several times a week, the 11-year-old’s father drives him to UNC from McDougle Middle School for math class.

“I can learn math very quickly,” MarcAndrew said. “It makes sense to me.”

The seventh-grader skipped half of both second and third grade. In sixth grade, he completed algebra 1, algebra 2, geometry and precalculus.

MarcAndrew’s accomplishments might already make for a formidable resume, but he said he’s aiming higher for a profession: theoretical astrophysicist.

“What I like most about math is how easily things can be visualized,” MarcAndrew said. “I feel exhilarated that I’ve found the solution to a problem — that it all makes sense.”

Last semester, MarcAndrew audited multivariable calculus at UNC. Now he is auditing discrete mathematics.

“He comes up with a lot of questions I hadn’t thought of before,” said Justin Sawon, his discrete mathematics professor.

“He asks a lot of questions. He’s more enthusiastic than the average student.”

Sawon said he has never seen this kind of talent before.

“I’m quite proud of him,” said MarcAndrew’s dad, Hansy Laurenvil. “I think a lot of his strength comes from the fact that we interact and talk (about his ideas).”

Laurenvil had always tutored MarcAndrew outside of school. But when MarcAndrew reached complex levels of math and science in sixth grade, it was almost too demanding for his father to continue teaching him.

“That’s when he started giving me the books to read,” MarcAndrew said.

Laurenvil said it was hard to convince the middle school of MarcAndrew’s talent.

“I was fighting with the school system for them to understand,” Laurenvil said. “We were trying to figure out where he would be challenged. He was wasting his time there.”

Laurenvil encountered resistance until MarcAndrew met with Peter Mucha, chairman of UNC’s mathematics department.

“Dr. Mucha spent some time with MarcAndrew and talked to him about physics and math,” Laurenvil said.

“Somehow professor Mucha broke the door down.”

Mucha said MarcAndrew is the only pre-high school student he has ever seen in classes on campus.

“His abilities are remarkable,” Mucha wrote in an email. “It’s been quite an experience to work with him.”

MarcAndrew explains his passion through examples, detailing his theories about perpetual motion, black holes and the ergosphere.

But his age still limits him in that respect.

“I also came up with a few inventions that I won’t be able to publish or invent for a few years,” he said.

Contact the University Editor at university@dailytarheel.com.