That’s what you call fast-track math.
At just 19, Georgia State University standout Ivanna Poliashenko raced through college in only 14 months, powering her way through packed days, intense coursework and study time squeezed in during train rides.
Poliashenko completed her bachelor’s degree at the public university in Atlanta by compressing what is typically a four-year undergraduate path into four semesters, from June 2025 through August 2026.
“I do really love math. It’s genuinely one of my favorite things,” Poliashenko told 11 Alive.
She said the heavy load never felt overwhelming because of her passion for the subject — and because Georgia State was open to helping her attempt something unusual. “Studying a lot of math doesn’t feel too burdensome. Georgia State was willing to work with me. They didn’t look at my plan and say, ‘here are the rules.’ They said, ‘Yes, we’ll help you. Let’s try to figure this out. We don’t know if it’ll work. We’ve never had something like this happen before, but we want to support you,’” she said.
Before she ever stepped into a Georgia State classroom, Poliashenko — a graduate of Atlanta’s elite Woodward Academy — had already mapped out how she might accelerate her college degree.
Working with Leslie Meadows, an undergraduate director, the teenage math prodigy built a carefully planned course schedule designed to carry her through every requirement in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
“I remember ending that meeting and thinking to myself, ‘What if this actually works out?’” Poliashenko said, according to the university.
Poliashenko, who majored in mathematics with a statistics concentration, tested out of several math prerequisites and had a “sizeable chunk” of core courses covered because of college credits earned through Advanced Placement classes in high school.
She began her degree plotting with a simple six-course semester in the summer of 2025 before loading up with seven classes in the fall, followed by an eight-course spring and wrapping it all up with another six-course summer.
During the gruesome eight-course spring – a product of a rare miscalculation – Poliashenko would wake up at 7:30 a.m., head to her tutoring position at the university’s STEM Tutoring Center for an hour and a half before attending classes between 10:30 a.m. and 6:45 p.m.
After the lectures, she would study on the train ride home and continue her cramming until lights out at around midnight.
“It was a painful but rewarding schedule,” she said.
Poliashenko, who grew up in a Ukrainian household only speaking Russian for the first few years of her life, feared the accelerated college program may have left gaps in her education.
However, she was reassured it didn’t after she received the school’s V.V. Lavroff Calculus Award, given by the department to students who earn a 4.0 GPA in all of their calculus courses.
“The math department really helped guide me towards my wildest dreams,” Poliashenko said.
During her brief college experience, also completed side projects learning abstract algebra with Professor Florian Enescu, who met with the teen genius once a week for five months to cover the topic she had no room to learn in a course.
Poliashenko was accepted into the Georgia Institute of Technology master’s program in mathematics to pursue a doctorate.
Georgia State ranks 125th in the country for best mathematics program, according to US News and World Report.
“I would love to be a researcher, but I also learned that I love teaching,” Poliashenko told 11Alive. “So I would be happy being a professor, maybe a high school teacher at some point because I really can’t make more of an impact for younger students.”
