Clearfield teen’s math skills take her to national competition


4 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

CLEARFIELD — Katrina Michael says math is best enjoyed when you just do it for fun. The 14-year-old home-schooled math whiz says she’s always loved numbers.

“It’s probably because it’s pretty straightforward,” Katrina Michael explained. “There’s no ... exceptions. Whereas, like if you’re doing English, there’s all these rules, and then the exceptions to the rules.”

On May 1, Katrina Michael will take her math skills on a national competition level at the annual National Numbers Knockout, or N2K competition.

The event is held aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean. But this prestige is nothing new to the teenager. This will be her third chance at the national title.

“I’ve gotten third both past years,” Katrina Michael said. “I’m aiming for first this year.”

Katrina Michael says math is best enjoyed when you just do it for fun. The 14-year-old home-schooled math whiz from Clearfield will soon take her skills onto a national competition level at the annual National Numbers Knockout — a competition she's placed third in, twice. (Photo: Mike Anderson, KSL TV)
Katrina Michael says math is best enjoyed when you just do it for fun. The 14-year-old home-schooled math whiz from Clearfield will soon take her skills onto a national competition level at the annual National Numbers Knockout — a competition she's placed third in, twice. (Photo: Mike Anderson, KSL TV)

While Katrina Michael is part of a home-schooling program through the Christian-focused group Classical Conversations, the competition is open to various public and private school students nationwide.

Competitors are given a sheet of paper with 36 numbers and three random numbers that they use to reach each of the other 36, through any mathematics formula they can come up with.

“Ever since she was a little girl, she just loved numbers,” said Cassie Michael, Katrina’s mother. “She zoomed through all of her math subjects.”

Like many teenagers, however, Katrina is not sure what she wants to do when she grows up.

“I like politics, stuff like that,” Katrina Michael said. “I don’t think I’d really want a job that involves math. Because I guess once math becomes work, it’s just not as fun.”

The grand prize at the N2K competition is $10,000. Katrina says there’s only one thing she can think of to do with that for now.

“Save it,” Katrina said laughing. “I don’t know what else I would do with it.”

Photos

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

UtahFamilyEducation
Mike Anderson
Mike Anderson often doubles as his own photographer, shooting and editing most of his stories. He came to KSL in April 2011 after working for several years at various broadcast news outlets.

STAY IN THE KNOW

Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

KSL Weather Forecast