STUDENT'S A COLLEGE GRADUATE AT 16; OTHERS WIN AWARDS.

Byline: SIMONE SCHRAMM Community columnist

By the time she was 11, Eleanor Chen of Chatsworth had already mastered her pre-algebra class, so she had no problem making the transition from middle school to college.

``In middle school, teachers thought I had an attitude,'' Eleanor recalled. ``I completed class work early, and I was bored.''

A family friend recommended that Eleanor enroll in the Early Entrance Program at California State University, Los Angeles, where highly gifted youngsters enroll in college classes.

Eleanor, now 16, recently graduated from CSULA with a bachelor's degree in business administration - the youngest in her class. She hopes to eventually become a business consultant.

During her years at CSULA, Eleanor was eager to get involved in campus life, serving on the Associated Students Inc. as a representative-at-large and later as secretary-treasurer.

She also served as vice president of the Golden Key honor society and was the recipient of the Freshman Award from Phi Kappa Phi national honor society and the CSULA Alumni Association scholarship for both 2000 and 2001.

Priscilla Cannistraci of Chatsworth is representing the nonprofit National Youth Leadership Forum at a forum on medicine being held in San Francisco today through July 2. She is among 350 high school students from around the country chosen to attend the 10-day event.

Students will visit medical facilities and conduct problem-based learning simulations in which they must study a fictional patient's case history, diagnose the problem and develop a treatment plan. In addition, Cannistraci and the others will meet leaders in the medical field including physicians, surgeons, scientists and educators.

``It's an inspirational thing,'' she said. ``It's exciting to know what that life is like.''

Cannistraci is also an athlete. She plans to play soccer in college and eventually attend the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical School to become a pediatrician.

For more information on NYLF, call [phone] or visit the Web site at www.nylf.org.

Jocelyn Tripet-Diel of Burbank was among four $5,000 winners of Mervyn's Local Hero Scholarship Program. Mervyn's scholarships were awarded on the basis of academic excellence and participation in activities such as community service, the arts and mentoring.

Winning $1,000 scholarships were Heidi Ambrosio of North Hollywood High School; Adam Borelli of Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks; Derek Huang of Chaminade College Preparatory in Winnetka, Adam Isen of Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Sherman Oaks; Sarkis Oganesyan of Clark Magnet High School in Glendale; and Charlene Riofrio of Louisville High School in Woodland Hills.

A team of six Van Nuys High School students took first place in the high school experiments category of the Robert H. Herndon Memorial Science Competition.

Their experiment was titled ``A Field Test to Determine the Accuracy of the Calculated Drag Coefficients for Rocket Nose Cones of Various Shapes.'' Team members 16 years and older were offered paid summer internships at the Aerospace Corp. in El Segundo. In addition to summer jobs, the students received $1,000 U.S. savings bonds.

The recipients are John Byun, Nahusenay Ghebremichael, Victor Meyerson, Ricarose Roque, and Megumi Tsutsui and Jordan Wengrod.

Mayra Torres of San Fernando High School won $1,000 in the fourth annual Stan Chambers Journalism Awards essay competition. Her essay, and those of four other winners, will air on KTLA's ``News at Ten'' Monday through June 30.