Aaronson grew up in the United States, though he spent a year in Asia when his father—a science writer turned public-relations executive—was posted to Hong Kong.[2] He enrolled in a school there that permitted him to skip ahead several years in math, but upon returning to the US, he found his education restrictive, getting bad grades and having run-ins with teachers. He enrolled in a program for gifted youngsters run by Clarkson University, which enabled Aaronson to apply for colleges while only in his freshman year of high school.[2] He was accepted into Cornell University, where he obtained his BSc in computer science in 2000,[3] then attended the University of California, Berkeley, for his PhD, which he got in 2004 under the supervision of Umesh Vazirani.[4] He is an atheist.[5]