At first glance Esther Okade seems like a normal 10-year-old. She loves dressing¹ up as Elsa from "Frozen," playing with Barbie dolls and going to the park or shopping.

第一眼看上去，十岁的埃丝特·奥卡德好像和同龄孩子没什么不一样。她喜欢打扮成《冰雪奇缘》里的艾尔莎，喜欢芭比娃娃，也喜欢去公园和商场。

But what makes the British-Nigerian youngster stand out is the fact that she's also a university undergraduate.

但与众不同的是，这个尼日利亚裔英国小女孩其实已是一名大学本科生了。

Esther, from Walsall, an industrial town in the UK's West Midlands region, is one of the country's youngest college freshmen².

埃丝特，来自英国西米德兰兹郡的工业城市沃尔索尔，已经成为了英国年龄最小的大学生之一。

The talented 10-year-old enrolled³ at the Open University, a UK-based distance learning college, in January and is already top of the class, having recently scored 100% in a recent exam.

今年1月份，这位10岁的天才少女进入了英国的一所远程教育大学——开放大学。她现在已经在班里名列前茅，最近一次考试得了满分。

"It's so interesting. It has the type of maths I love. It's real maths -- theories, complex numbers, all that type of stuff," she giggles⁴. "It was super easy. My mum taught me in a nice way."

“大学很有趣。这里有我喜欢的那种数学，那种真正的数学——理论、复杂的数字，诸如此类，”她咯咯地笑着说，“这非常简单，都是我妈妈之前教得好。”

She adds: "I want to (finish the course) in two years. Then I'm going to do my PhD in financial maths when I'm 13. I want to have my own bank by the time I'm 15 because I like numbers and I like people and banking⁵ is a great way to help people."

她还说：“我想在两年内读完本科课程，然后13岁时去读金融数学的博士。我希望，到15岁的时候拥有自己的银行，因为我喜欢数字，也喜欢人们，而银行可以很好地帮助人们。”

And in case people think her parents have pushed her into starting university early, Esther emphatically disagrees.

或许有人认为埃丝特是在父母的压力下才早早进入大学，她断然否认这一说法。

"I actually wanted to start when I was seven. But my mum was like, "you're too young, calm down." After three years of begging, mother Efe finally agreed to explore the idea.

“其实我7岁开始就想要上大学了，但是我妈妈说，‘你还太小，别急’，我恳求了三年，妈妈埃菲才终于同意。”

Esther has always jumped ahead of her peers. She sat her first Math GSCE exam, a British high school qualification, at Ounsdale School in Wolverhampton at just six, where she received a C-grade. A year later, she outdid herself and got the A-grade she wanted. Then last year she scored a B-grade when she sat the Math A-level exam.

埃丝特一直都比同龄人学得快。她6岁就在伍尔弗汉普顿的Ounsdale学校第一次参加英国中学普通中等教育（GSCE）数学考试，得了C。一年后，她再次参加考试，拿到了她想要的A。去年，她在中学高级水平（A-level）数学考试中拿到了B。

Esther's mother noticed her daughter's flair⁶ for figures shortly after she began homeschooling her at the age of three. Initially⁷, Esther's parents had enrolled her in a private school but after a few short weeks, the pair began noticing changes in the usually-vibrant youngster.

埃丝特3岁时，她的妈妈开始在家教她，很快就察觉了女儿在数字方面上的天赋。最初，埃丝特的父母让女儿上了一所私立学校，但短短几周后，他们就开始注意到，活跃的女儿有了变化。

Efe says: "One day we were coming back home and she burst out in tears and she said 'I don't ever want to go back to that school -- they don't even let me talk!'

埃菲说：“一天我们回家的路上，她突然大哭，说‘我不想去那里上学了——他们都不让我说话！’”

"In theUK, you don't have to start school until you are five. Education is not compulsory⁸ until that age so I thought OK, we'll be doing little things at home until then. Maybe by the time she's five she will change her mind."

“在英国，五岁之前可以不去上学。在五岁之前，教育并不是强制性的。所以我想她可以先在家学点东西，等她到五岁时，她可能就会改变想法了。”

Efe started by teaching basic number skills but Esther was miles ahead. By four, her natural aptitude⁹ for maths had seen the eager student move on to algebra¹⁰ and quadratic equations.

埃菲一开始教女儿一些基本的算术，但埃丝特的能力大大地超前了。这位求知欲旺盛的学生，4岁时已经学习代数和二次方程了，她的数学天赋崭露无疑。

And Esther isn't the only maths prodigy¹¹ in the family. Her younger brother Isaiah, 6, will soon be sitting his first A-level exam in June.

埃丝特并不是家里唯一的一个数学天才，她的弟弟艾赛亚，年仅6岁，即将在6月份参加中学高级水平考试。