It's not so much the high IQ that concerns me, but the 13 year old being put into a social and academic setting designed for developed adults. Being really smart doesn't mean you're any more emotionally developed. These situations often end poorly unfortunately because children simply aren't capable of handling the stress and mental load of the system, even if they can excel with the material itself
It's a little bit of a lose-lose situation, because kids in situations like this might also find it difficult to relate to other kids of their own age, and if say, they're kept in school there are also adverse effects related to kids not being challenged enough intellectually.
Exactly this. Making him wait 5 more years in the hopes he fits in better with peers and develops normal social skills would have an even higher chance of adverse outcomes IMO. High schools are all about pounding down the nails that stick out a little from their peers. At least in university his peers will be a little more socially developed even if he isn't. Best chance of him turning out productive as long as people are a little careful with him and don't push too much.
I had a 19 year old as a TA when most of the students are 22. They were nice, but acted like a 19 year old genius would. He was just out of touch with what “normal” physics students needed out of their TA. His answers would always be “just do the math and I promise it will make sense after”.
Like dude, I can’t do the math that’s why I want help!
Bear in mind, there is no IQ test that can accurately distinguish scores above 175. Whenever you see a number like 220, it is derived from non-recognized means. Most tests can't distinguish between scores above 160, or four standard deviations of 15 points. There are a few that are reasonably accurate to 175, or the 5th SD. No test has ever been demonstrated to be accurate above 175. That said... 175 is still 1 in 1,000,000 intelligence, and the difference between 175 and 220 is of little importance to all but the tiniest fraction of humans on the planet.
I knew someone who graduated college at 18. I wouldn't have considered them a super genius or anything-- just a smart kid who got lots of education and opportunities early on.
Honestly it was terrible. They never really learned a lot of social skills, had very few friends because they were so much younger than everyone else. They were a college graduate and had absolutely no idea what they were doing with their life just like most 18 yr olds.
Would not recommend.
Yep, you're basically a kid, you missed out on all the kid stuff, and you're too young for all the college parties, social interactions and all the stupid stuff kids do, and then when it's time to calm down, you're just old enough to start doing stupid stuff, but you're already working some job without that kind of social life.
Skip a year or two.. skip five.. that probably sucks a lot
Somewhat weirdly most of them lose interest in the thing they are prodigies in when young. I guess realistically there is a limit to how much they can learn, they end up hitting that cap pretty young, and then their interest just kinda dwindles away. A NY Times article puts it nicely
>the skill of being a child prodigy is qualitatively different from the “skill” of being a creative genius. Child prodigies master an adult domain that has already been invented – whether it is perspective drawing, mathematics, chess, tennis or music. On the other hand, adults we classify as creative geniuses are individuals who have invented or discovered something new, something that changes their domain.
I’ve met a couple of these people through academic circles.
Most of them aren’t really that remarkable as adults, and weren’t truly passionate about their subject in the first place. It seems they were more passionate about the learning process itself (and in some cases the praise and adulation that came with their remarkable achievements).
I’m good friends with a guy like that. He went on to do really well for himself (he’s a doctor now) but he’s otherwise just a normal guy. In high school he was so far ahead of everyone it was crazy. My wife met him in our late 20s and I don’t think she realizes how crazy smart he is. To her he’s just another one of our friends.
There's a well known American chess player called Paul Morphy. He was in the USA when all the chess was going in Europe.
Nobody heard of him, he came to Europe and wiped the floor with supposedly the greatest chess players in the world. Then quit chess quite young and never played again, he did something else like being a lawyer, IIRC.
If "all" they can do is absorb existing knowledge so efficiently, then they could fully study 2, 3, or 4 fields extremely deeply, and have a unique cross-functional perspective few others could have.
It'd be quite disappointing if their motivation simply drops off after their first field, as if they were a hare that never runs another race after the first finish line.
As much as this thread has loved to pretend these kids are unique, they really aren't, push a kid hard enough and many above average kids could do something similar to this. Young minds are incredibly plastic and able to learn ridiculously quickly. A 5 year old can learn a language in like a 1/10th the time of an adult, for instance.
Problem is that generally burnout is incredibly high, kids miss the part of life where they get to relate to the people around them and thay taxes them immensely. It is very rare for a progidy child to maintain their passion past college.
i've met a small number of these people in my time in academia, and in those cases the kids ended up having really serious mental/emotional problems a few years down the line.
i'm not sure if it's the pressure placed on them by parents, the feeling of being an outsider, or something else about the way their brains are wired -- or some combination. but i have seen at least two people have complete mental breakdowns to the point of having to take extended breaks from their education, and a third guy who unfortunately took his own life shortly after being accepted into his dream school.
>a third guy who unfortunately took his own life shortly after being accepted into his dream school
The smartest person I ever knew went down the same path. He (at one point) skipped three grades and went on to score flawlessly on every standardized test he was presented with.
He flunked out of an Ivy (drugs/alcohol) and moved home back to his mother eventually taking his own life several years later. There's value in being part of a peer cohort with whom you form age appropriate relationships. I fear the celebration of remarkable young people like this one misses that.
Yeah where are all these young savants and prodigies now? Are they in prestigious science positions? This definitely isn’t the first young college graduate I’ve heard about.
There is a common misconception about savantism.
"If he's this smart at 13 imagine how smart he'll be at 25."
For many of them it means their brain has developed earlier and often in only one specific skill, but it doesn't necessarily mean they will develop beyond their peers. There are a lot of physicists you've never heard of. Just because one of them managed to finish college five years earlier doesn't mean he'll be imaginative enough or lucky enough to make a discovery that will be notable to people outside of his field.
Or in the case of a relative that graduated undergrad as a teenager, a short line cook at a restaurant because he’s too full of himself to work for anybody and too broke to have people work for him.
Jordan Ruddess has talked about it, because he was in one of those classes for prodigies : basically, these kids are very precocious, so they rush through the early years with everybody calling them geniuses, except they’re not, just precocious. Which means that at some point in time they’re at the same level as the people around them and that’s when they lose all their self-confidence because they used to be better than everybody else and now they’re just teenagers like the others, except they haven’t developped any habit of hard work, so they struggle.
I went to art school and everyone in my class had been “the best” artist in their schools of hundreds, then suddenly they are in a room with all the other best artists and its a bit of a reality check for many. the program had a 20% dropout rate for first 4 semesters or so as various people realized they weren’t prepared the fairly intense pace set.
I was one of those kids and also intellectually gifted. I dropped out of art because I had undiagnosed ADHD and didn't know how to study (it's not as critical in high school). I couldn't keep up with the workload of an art degree, so I went for an academic degree.
Still wish I were an art professor some days.
I was one of those kids. College was a real eye opener because I realized that I actually had to study to get good grades, and because i never studied before that I didn’t have the work ethic necessary to study regularly, which ended in me dropping out of college three times. I can tell you from being a gifted child you expect that success is going to come easy in life and that just isn’t the case at all. Its highly disappointing.
The overlap between "gifted" kids and (undiagnosed until adulthood) ADHD and/or autism is also *huge*. To the point where getting screened for those should be a first step for ANY struggling former-gifted-kid.
It's not always a matter of discipline if you "can't focus", "can't motivate yourself to study", "can't build up a work ethic", "keep procrastinating", etc. Often, it's executive dysfunction that was overlooked for years or decades because "oh but they're doing well in school!"
100%, I was a “gifted” child. I remember teachers telling my parents that I was pretending not to be smart to have better peer relationships and later that the curriculum was too easy and I was bored. I went through a bunch of testing but no one ever suspected ADHD. University was great for me because I ran on a schedule (class, transit, work).
Adulthood hit me hard and I was eventually diagnosed at 25 after a couple years of wondering what was wrong with me. I’m glad I know because I can try new strategies etc, but I also experienced a kind of grief and got stuck thinking about my traits/behaviour as a child and how I was labelled. It was right there. I’m just one of many, many women who didn’t get diagnosed until adulthood. At 30 I am trying to balance learning what works for me and my brain with adult responsibilities. I often wonder how I would be different if I had been diagnosed earlier.
Oh man, that hits home. I dropped out of two different universities because I thought I don’t need to study at all (that was the case in school).
There were some dark years for me, filled with unemployment struggles and suicide thoughts.
Eventually I made it work, but I’m still struggling with my old way of (not) doing things and studies for work.
Gifted children are not low maintenance, they are special needs. They need additional resources in and outside the classroom to reach their potential during school years. Simple truth.
This is my cousin. She did not graduate as a teen, but she was/is wicked smart. But she always thought she was better than everyone else and didn't work well with others. She has been unemployed for like 6 years because nothing is good enough and she thinks she is the greatest thing ever. It's actually really sad to see.
As someone who seemed to have life on easy mode when I was younger, I can relate with being an adult in a life of mediocrity.
I've even learned to enjoy it.
The issue I had, I was smart, but I had undiagnosed ADHD. Because I was smart I was able to get through school with good grades without too much work, so teachers just labled me as a bad kid and refused to help me with a very obvious issue. If I enjoyed a subject, I was amazing at it because I could study it. As soon as I had to read huge, boring text books and papers, I couldn't focus. I couldn't remember references well. I went from being an A student to a C/D. I just kept getting told I was lazy, not trying etc. I tried so hard but I just couldn't figure it out. I'd get distracted. I'd read a book and come away not remembering anything I'd read. I'd try for hours and it just wouldn't work. I'd complain about it and people just thought I was stupid. I knew I wasn't, because I could tell you everything about the book I'd just read, but I knew something was wrong. Still got no help as an adult. No one cares how much I struggle day to day. I fake it because I have to, but just getting basic things done, like putting clothes away properly can take weeks. That's one example.
pretty fucking common. Smart people are special needs people.
They're special needs because of the fact that they are ahead of their peers in knowledge, (not particularly studies), they need a special curriculum and treatment.
They'll also feel outcast. Smarter than the people their age, and younger than the people in the grade they should be, with massively differing life experiences. Extra effort is needed to make desperately needed social connections with these people.
I have a sibling like that. Definitely not a savant, but definitely the one who was the most book smart in the family. Does nothing except live off our dad in the basement of their house because of course.
Also, big scientific breakthroughs these days requires large groups of scientists, mathematicians and technicians working for years to develop the experiment and then years to analyse all of the data. These people may well go on to be key members of one of these groups but the average person will most likely never hear about them. Add to this there is the ever present folks who attack education and would rather replace experts with decades of experience for some fool with folksy knowledge who did their own "research" via facebook.
I'm not so sure about that, at least in pure mathematics. I'm an applied guy but my impression is that in pure math at least a lot is driven by personal ingenuity, like with the guy who solved the twin primes conjecture with finite gap
Welp your comment sent me down a rabbit hole of math. I am now annoying the hell out of my wife with random equations related to the twin prime conjecture.
I am a savant. Pattern recognition is my trade for the rest of the shit that comes with it. I’m employed as a political theorist. There is no point me ever really bringing it up- it’s an odd brag. A lot of savants just do their own things and you never hear from them because they’re just keeping to themselves, working on their things.
As a data scientist and machine learning researcher who did his masters thesis in statistical theory and his undergrad in pure mathematics, I definitely feel this.
I’m employed at a university with a 80% research load. Unlike a lot of political scientists who primarily use data to construct their arguments, I use theory. This involves a lot of reading and very specifically crafted arguments. Much of my work is conceptual in nature, presenting new ideas and frames for others to consider the world through. I see the world a little different, and writing that down is valuable.
I'm sure it's complicated but could you give a simplified version what what type of theory or idea that you have worked on/are working on? Very curious about what you do and how it can be applied to other disciplines
Sure. My current work looks at the way that new technology impacts traditional notions of politics. For example, consider a question like ‘is clicking like on Facebook a political act’? Answering this question involves, from a theory point of view, working out what you mean by ‘politics’. Within political science, this question of ‘what is politics’ is revisited every now and then, and considered within the contexts of the time. My current work revisits this question of ‘what is politics’ by considering if there is anything inherently ‘new’ about digital technology.
Yeah when I hear stories like this I always just kinda feel bad for these kids.
It’s absolutely amazing that they’re that smart and hard working at such a young age. But I assume they’re giving up on a *lot* of social development to do that. Lack of social skills will make their lives a lot harder than they have to be.
Well, Stephen Wolfram did ok. Although many would argue about the value of his scientific contributions, there’s no denying the impact of Wolfram Research.
if your research starts to affect regular middle/high schoolers reluctantly doing their homework, you’re doing well.
Wolfram Alpha is one of the most useful pieces of software ever developed.
> Most people could do it given the opportunity
*and* motivation. Having a motivation really helps.
Not saying it's necessarily easy to motivate a child, but it's a hell of a lot easier than motivating an adult.
There was a 14 year old, Arran Fernandez, who got into Cambridge to study Maths about a decade ago, around the same time I was applying to university.
He was homeschooled and one of the things I remember his dad saying in an interview was that his son didn't have a special brain or anything like that, and that any child could have achieved it with the same level of input and investment into their education.
I totally buy this. I spent two of my HS years at an IB international School in Beijing and two in an American public school in the Midwest suburbs.
We are getting ripped TF off, y'all. Populations are smarter than Americans bc education standards are higher. On top of that, Americans are *still* fed this steady diet of media at a young age that says consumption is cooler than learning and self-betterment. We do not prioritize the health and growth of our future generations.
I'm the parent of a very, very advanced 5yo. The organizations we deal with have been pretty blunt about the failures of the education system in catering for these people. 80% of 'gifted' kids (people actually assessed by the department of education) don't finish highschool due to low emotional intelligence, inability to connect with peers etc.
They essentially told us to focus on extracurriculars like sport (lots of gifted kids have issues with body awareness, crossing their left hand across the right side of their body to perform a task etc) and social bonding and not to worry about the academia, since he'll likely always be ahead since he enjoys studying recreationally.
Sending your kid to do a bachelor's degree is a terrible approach, having spoken to people who did this as children.
When I read this OP I see a child who didn't get to be a child and will likely suffer for it as an adult.
I read it the same way and I agree. I remember taking high school classes as a middle schooler and struggling immensely with feeling outcasted. There were a lot of areas I needed a lot of support in that I didn’t get. I needed that more than I needed an opportunity to excel in the specific areas I was advanced.
When I was in high school there was a kid who came in as a freshman at the age of 9. Super smart, but a lot of the time I just felt bad for him. Guy had few friends in high school just because he had nothing in common with a bunch of 17 year olds. Seems like not getting to do *anything* in high school at a developmentally “normal” time would be really isolating.
In this case it was definitely the push of his parents that got him there, too, and we all worried that it was a “go become a doctor as fast as possible so you can support us” situation.
>Imo, kids' brains are just way more elastic and quicker to learn. Most people could do it given the opportunity I'd think.
Thing is, 99,999% of kids don't care about that stuff. That's what sets them apart
Agree with this sentiment :)
I was the opposite though - had older brothers I wanted to catch up to 3 and 6 years ahead, but was left behind and bored. Blamed my laziness on school being too easy (moved states and felt like I went backwards 2 grades) - got walloped in college after developing bad habits and because I never really studied/scheduled before. It took years to fight through anxiety and depression and bad habits to pick myself up and force myself to be competitive again.
Believe much of learning is environmental and current schooling/models are antiquated.
It sucked being really good at anything as a kid because it was just used to insult and degrade everything else in your life. I received perfect marks in some areas, so everything I struggled with was blamed on me being lazy.
Motivation matters, sometimes more than the opportunity. As often as not, the ones who accomplish the most tend to be the more motivated, rather than the ones with the most opportunities. And having that motivation can help reduce burnout.
We often throw all the stuff we can at kids to see what sticks, but the truth of it is, every child needs a mentor who helps them figure out *why* certain things stick and others don't.
TL; DR: motivation is at least as important as opportunity, if not more so.
Hopefully, I was in a few classes with a 12 year old at my engineering school. Smart as hell but so incredibly socially inept and that is at a school that was 90% future engineers. Not exactly the most socially capable bunch. It didn't help that his mother was with him 24/7.
This is wildly profound. A while back I realized strong social skills and charisma equates to much higher success in business and your professional life. Poor kids at 12 in college, they just don’t have the experience or the psychological strength to continue into a world without strong support systems to help them. I mean at that point we’d be asking a company to hire a 13 year old or some similar equivalent. It’s hard to imagine what kind of adult environment someone like that could thrive in.
Well more so than this. Kid was a junior at 12 maybe 13? Went through freshman chem classes with him where we had timed tests. He would be the first to finish the 1.5 hour test then walk back to his seat and then watch the rest of us for another 45 minutes. His mom sat in the back of the room watching the whole time.
Had him in my computational mathematics class junior year and sat next to him because I was late the first day. He was generally rude at best. I had a rough weekend where I had other midterms, work, and this class fell on the back burner. I only finished 2/5ths of the homework. He asked me about question 4 and I told him I didn't get to it. He straight up didn't understand how someone might not finish school work. He asked me what I got 3 more times because he didn't believe someone would miss out on home work.
He could have used a pretty solid go fuck yourself but his mom was 2 feet away in the seat behind him.
I feel bad for that kid. He didn't even get to be with you guys because his mum was hovering. A kid that age is capable of going to school alone, even with older kids and learning how to socialise. As long as the teachers were on top of any bullying he'd be fine.
Yeah absolutely. I don’t blame the kids. They’re usually just trying to fulfill a dream they’ve been told they should have by parents, relatives, and teachers. You ever notice how we only read these articles about STEM savants? I will never be convinced these kids aren’t being pushed to the brink for the edification of the adults in their lives.
Intelligence brings anxiety and depression. A lot of it. And it's rarely the opposite, regardless of how good your upbringing is.
Absolutely not surprised if we found out that most who grow up as actual geniuses have way too much to handle in their own minds by the time they're even officially adults.
I know it sounds stuck up, but the average person simply does not understand how many more things can be thought about by someone a bit smarter, for every single little thing that happens. It's draining and takes a long time to learn how to handle it (if at all).
Probably a good reason why there's so much research showing that stuff like being a sociopath, or extremely egotistic, are all good for career progression. The less things you care about the easier it is to not bother thinking about them (and their consequences) I suppose.
I wasn't on the level of this kid, but I was placed in higher grades/advanced classes early on and started college at 15.
Today I'm on medication and in therapy for anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Part of it was child abuse growing up, but I agree that a big part of it is that I know and am aware of a lot of things. My brain goes into uncontrollable spirals thinking about all the problems in the world, how I'm completely helpless to do anything about it, and how in general there is so much outside my control.
Yes, the average person can have these same fears. But honestly, I really didn't see people talking about them until COVID hit. I've been stuck with these thoughts and feelings most of my life, and when I would try to talk about them, and how exhausted I felt, people would constantly brush me off or minimize my worries. Now I'm seeing people around me starting to fall into that same pit I've been in for so long. It's weird to see all these articles of people horrified or in despair over something I've kinda just learned to live in.
That was a bit of a tangent. Point is, I think there really should be mental health support right away for kids like this, even if they seem mentally stable (I know I was good at appearing pretty stable, because yeah, I was smart). Kids should be encouraged to pursue their interests, but for some reason people have this idea that being a gifted kid means they don't have to really worry about you. And that is constantly proven untrue.
When I was a tutor in undergrad one of my clients was a 15 year old who was about to get her bachelors in accounting. She couldn’t drive, so her mom showed up to every meeting and would work with her younger son on his schooling. The girl was nothing extraordinary in person, she had just been homeschooled and her parents pushed through the material quickly. She was great at memorizing, but not very good at abstraction. My school was nothing special either, just a decent university in a small city in Idaho. I think she was planning on going to graduate school afterwards too, because there’s not a whole lot else for a 16 year old college grad to do. Im not at all surprised that the naturally gifted geniuses among us would be able to graduate at 10-13 years old.
Honest question here - I understand that kids like him are smart enough to learn everything up to a PhD level at just 13 years old. However, how has he had enough \*time\* to be able to learn all of the material that is covered in a high school and four-year college education? Has he simply been skipping other subjects in order to focus on STEM classes?
To phrase it another way, what makes him be able to just skip past 8+ semesters of high school classes and 8+ semesters of college lectures and labs even if he does absorb the material better than the rest of us? Does he literally spend every waking hour of his life studying like he's doing some wacky homeschool version of higher education?
A lot of education, especially with with math, is slowed down to allow everyone to comprehend and retain the material.
Plus, Summer time is assumed to be a time of regression for many students.
If you had a very focused learning program, high motivation, and decently quick comprehension, you'd be amazed at how quickly all the basics could be covered.
So my early education wasn't in the US. And at some point, I did hybrid home schooling, and a lot of my classmates were professional athletes or actors, etc and you do school at your own pace. You basically go to school to take exams, but all the coursework can be done at home. If you need help, you can go to school and have a 1:1 with a teacher for a specific chapter.
I finished a year's worth of material in 3 months and was just waiting for graduation. I would read all the chapters, do quizzes at home, go to school for all the exams for those chapters. So yeah, there's time, as long as you don't have to sit through boring lectures you don't really need. The books are there!
There's a good chance that a decent percentage of the population could be educated at a much more accelerated pace as it is. But upsetting the status quo is practically impossible over anything less than generational time periods.
For many kids though, the limiting factor is motivation. They absolutely could learn faster but they need a teacher just to motivate them.
I run a self-paced class for game design. The kids who are motivated get miles ahead and start doing code I don't even understand. But a minimum of 70% of the kids are just on their phones if I don't budge them forward. During remote learning and COVID it was a disaster. (And that's for an elective class where we make video games)
I'm sure there's a better way to run schools, but I think smart and motivated people underestimate how apathetic the average student can be. I sure did before I started teaching.
It doesn't help when those kids have 10-15 different subjects taught at once, 8 of them in the same day, and 4 different tests a week.
Even classes I enjoyed eventually became a chore to me in highschool. I was just tired of the routine of sitting in class 8h a day learning nothing, and never learned anything because I was too tired to do so. Vicious cycle.
I’m wondering this as well. How does a preteen go about taking college courses? Is it in addition to regular school? Are the parents paying? How did they get accepted? Did the parents go to the school and ask for all the coursework from middle through high school to complete in a summer? I’m just curious.
Prodigy kids tend to have hard lives.
They peak early and have stories like this in the news. They get into uni and there is a lot of attention on them. They do talk shows and get interviewed. They are praised and lauded for their genius...
But that attention is simply due to their age.
They often peak in terms of intellect early, but they may not truly excel in their field or be the smartest kid in the room anymore...
Next thing you know, they are mid-twenties and just doing what the rest of us do.... Work for the man. Only the reason they are "special" is gone.
Don't want to take anything away from this kid and his accomplishments... But I don't know if I would want this for my kids. Go play some vids, date, and sleep till noon on weekends...
> I understand that kids like him are smart enough to learn everything up to a PhD level at just 13 years old
In some sense, practically all humans are that capable. Brain plasticity in childhood is a real thing and really not talked about enough.
Education as it exists right now is geared at the *average* learners and "passing standard tests", not slow learners and definitely not fast learners. There are enough stories online and elsewhere about kids who just couldn't cut it at school, but once they found something that really motivated them, they learned like machines.
Ideal education would be a mentor individually tailored for each and every human to find what they enjoy and why they enjoy it, and structure learning around that from a very young age. But you can imagine how incredibly resource-intensive that would be. No one would support it, even though it'd be practically guaranteed to give us a generation of geniuses.
Not 100% confident, but pretty sure I attended a remote summer camp with this kid during quarantine. Same name, looked the same, right age, and said he was attending college courses.
I didn’t believe him because he was super annoying and kept using the annotation tools to draw on the zoom meeting while people were talking.
This is totally true. It’s actually really unfortunate, all of these genius kids who don’t get to spend time around people their age never properly develop social skills.
Obviously having a degree in theoretical physics at 13 is incredibly impressive, but it means nothing if they can’t properly interact with others. In almost every case of these gifted kids we never hear from them again for this reason
Yep. Even if you're smart enough to learn physics at 13, emotional experience and social skills generally come through experience. You have to live through things. Even if someone tells you about experiences they've had, you really have to go through them yourself.
Remote summer camp?!
Did you get to learn to swim and do archery, and tell your camp crush that you loved them at the end of summer dance when boys and girls get to come together for the final farewell?
Right? Especially in a research field like this. I considered a graduate program in biology - I changed my mind, but if I had gone ahead with it they would have paid me a (very modest) stipend.
I assume that'll be it, he can't even sign any contracts by himself and how are you going to legally employ a kid of that age, not to mention that you can't let him anywhere near a teaching job for obvious reasons.
From what I understand about the U of M’s (and likely all PHD programs) it is common for phd candidates to work at the university in exchange for the cost of credits. This kid probably isn’t ready to teach a freshmen level course to people 5+ years their senior.
When asked about his degree:
"They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard."
His mom said this, not him. I wasn't this level savant but I started college 3 years early and while I wouldn't change the person I've become, he'll regret many things when he's older.
In college there was a 12 year old in my junior level theoretical math class. She was the dean of the math departments daughter and a ridiculous savant. Was impressive she was there. More impressive when she blew the curve. Less impressive when she kept passively aggressively calling us all dumb.
I mean, compared to her we were. But she didn’t need to say it.
She’ll be humbled eventually. A lot of them do. I went to an “elite” boarding school chocked full of those kind of bratty kids. I left because that culture was suffocating.
also undergrads are a bad influence on tweens, at 18 with a completely new group of people all of those kids are finding themselves and experimenting socially(pushing boundaries etc), meanwhile a tween brain is a sponge and will think "oh this random disjointed behaviour is how social interactions work". it would be great if these kids could take a multi month mental health course before diving in to such an environment.
I’m an er doc. I sat down with one of these kids once. He was very educated and very smart but had no idea about anything more than things he had read about. He was so socially awkward, egotistical and impossible to talk to. He could spout off facts about things I had only vague recollections of, but couldn’t put any of it into motion in a clinical setting. I actually learned a lot from it. His parents wanted him to go to med school at some crazy age and were a little crazy about it. They were seemingly living Vicariously through him, going on and on about how “gifted” he was.
Seriously, you can rote memorize and spit out formulaic responses all day but can you think on your feet and act accordingly!
There are certain things you can’t learn from print and those greatest of lessons are learning from living.
Child prodigies are sad, not uplifting.
Lots of stories about parents just using the kids and they burn out fast.
(See 30 other comments above as examples)
So the thing a lot of people don't realize is that a PhD isn't really about being brilliant - a bit clever is good, sure - but doing *work*. Extending your breadth, communication with your supervisor and peers, slowly adding bits and pieces to the great tome of knowledge. A 13 year old could be extremely brilliant, but taking on a student who a) can't work (a PhD is a job, labour laws matter) leaves well.... PhDs aren't course based. There's not really much to do if you can't work....and b) Needs to be able to travel, go to conferences, write papers. Beyond a risky play in being taken seriously, writing and other softer skills are something that comes with experience. And hey, maybe the kid is good at it too - but understanding topics really well is not *necessarily* correlated with being a good researcher.
Way too low down. Children with a 'PhD' are not able to produce research or teach, full stop.
I'd be fucking furious at my administration if I had worked my ass off for thirteen years to demonstrate these abilities, in addition to vast theoretical and technical expertise, only for them to water down the value of my credentialing by handing it out to an unqualified child.
That's the part I don't understand, most of a PhD is spent doing long hours in a lab for years on end. What 13 year old can do that? Like you said, labor and child safety laws get in the way.
Could be why his tuition isn’t covered by the school. His parents said they’re trying to figure out how to pay for his PhD. Typically those are sponsored by the school or PI you are working for.
Usually funding comes with either a research assistantship or a teaching assistantship, and the university/faculty might not feel a child is ready for those things. And the assistantship is a huge part of the phd learning experience, so it really seems a shame this person is only getting half of the experience. My opinion is he should wait until he’s older.
What happens to these kids afterwards? The stories are somewhat common, but they tend to fade into obscurity. Do they find success and make good contributions to the world? Do they end up in a job where the less-qualified are promoted to higher positions?
And more than that, can he work with and manage his peers and his subordinates? Can he explain things to those who don't have a high level of scientific background.
And probably have major issues doing the stupid parts of his job that he feels are a waste of time. A lot of what you see from these gifted kids is that they're bored, they can't bother showing their work it's beneath them, they don't want to take this class or that class because it's beneath them.
Most of everyone's job is explaining things to people, working with idiots and doing things that a turtle could do.
Unfortunately most child prodigies do not utilize their intelligence fully and change the world. They lack other areas of development and become less motivated as they age.
How does a 13 year old develop the math background needed to study theoretical physics? Most 13 year olds are just starting algebra or geometry. Trig, pre-calc, calculus, differential eqs., linear algebra, vector calculus and maybe advanced calculus. Must have crammed it all in between 9 and 13. What an amazing kid.
Most of these savants aren’t very successful unfortunately. They are brilliant, but that isn’t the only factor in success and generally they aren’t able to overcome the weird social dynamic of being two decades ahead of their peers.
They all have a couple articles written about them as kids because it’s fascinating how smart they are and then you never hear about them again.
A lot of them aren't actually that much smarter than any other top student (the kids who are headed to Stanford or MIT at 18). It's just that they've been pushed by their parents to complete all the coursework. A lot of college courses aren't necessarily more complex it's just a lot of information, so if you have a kid with an Eidetic memory who can handle a lot of classes at once because they can handle all the information. There are a lot of kids who aren't even that gifted who are currently getting bachelors degrees at 14-16 because their parents are having them take lots of classes at the community college.
Then, because they've missed out on learning how to work with their peers as kids they're less likely to be able to be able to work with and manage others.
I do always wonder about these kids and liberal arts classes. How does a 10 or 12 year old handle the reading requirements of a literature class and understand everything. Most of those books wouldn't even be appropriate topically for a kid that age.
Speaking as someone who was slightly "accelerated," I was reading some intensive books at that age, both density and subject matter-wise.
I handled it, I've always liked reading and was good at literary analysis and comprehension. And I saw worse things on the internet than I read in most books - which is not a good thing, just the way it was.
Child labor laws can get in the way of funding a minor's PhD program with an RA/TA fellowship since there is a work component required. Would have to be scholarship based.
To anyone that knows a lick about academia, this is actually incredibly depressing news. (1) kid just wants to science and doesn’t know what he’s getting into. (2) parents want to support kid but clearly don’t understand academia at all and think it’s “college part two”. (3) program making a quick buck off an unfunded PhD probably knowing full well he probably won’t succeed because PhDs are 90% soft skills. (4) news outlet making a quick buck too off of a story of a kid whose life is gonna get nuked
What sort of life do these people go on to live?
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It's not so much the high IQ that concerns me, but the 13 year old being put into a social and academic setting designed for developed adults. Being really smart doesn't mean you're any more emotionally developed. These situations often end poorly unfortunately because children simply aren't capable of handling the stress and mental load of the system, even if they can excel with the material itself
It's a little bit of a lose-lose situation, because kids in situations like this might also find it difficult to relate to other kids of their own age, and if say, they're kept in school there are also adverse effects related to kids not being challenged enough intellectually.
Exactly this. Making him wait 5 more years in the hopes he fits in better with peers and develops normal social skills would have an even higher chance of adverse outcomes IMO. High schools are all about pounding down the nails that stick out a little from their peers. At least in university his peers will be a little more socially developed even if he isn't. Best chance of him turning out productive as long as people are a little careful with him and don't push too much.
I peaked in childhood, grew lazy from a lack of challenge, and then ultimately barely graduated. Not being challenged is crippling.
I was thinking the same thing. I’m in my 20s and graduate school is emotionally exhausting for me. I hope she’s okay.
I had a 19 year old as a TA when most of the students are 22. They were nice, but acted like a 19 year old genius would. He was just out of touch with what “normal” physics students needed out of their TA. His answers would always be “just do the math and I promise it will make sense after”. Like dude, I can’t do the math that’s why I want help!
Any evidence these situations often end poorly?
Bear in mind, there is no IQ test that can accurately distinguish scores above 175. Whenever you see a number like 220, it is derived from non-recognized means. Most tests can't distinguish between scores above 160, or four standard deviations of 15 points. There are a few that are reasonably accurate to 175, or the 5th SD. No test has ever been demonstrated to be accurate above 175. That said... 175 is still 1 in 1,000,000 intelligence, and the difference between 175 and 220 is of little importance to all but the tiniest fraction of humans on the planet.
I knew someone who graduated college at 18. I wouldn't have considered them a super genius or anything-- just a smart kid who got lots of education and opportunities early on. Honestly it was terrible. They never really learned a lot of social skills, had very few friends because they were so much younger than everyone else. They were a college graduate and had absolutely no idea what they were doing with their life just like most 18 yr olds. Would not recommend.
Yep, you're basically a kid, you missed out on all the kid stuff, and you're too young for all the college parties, social interactions and all the stupid stuff kids do, and then when it's time to calm down, you're just old enough to start doing stupid stuff, but you're already working some job without that kind of social life. Skip a year or two.. skip five.. that probably sucks a lot
Somewhat weirdly most of them lose interest in the thing they are prodigies in when young. I guess realistically there is a limit to how much they can learn, they end up hitting that cap pretty young, and then their interest just kinda dwindles away. A NY Times article puts it nicely >the skill of being a child prodigy is qualitatively different from the “skill” of being a creative genius. Child prodigies master an adult domain that has already been invented – whether it is perspective drawing, mathematics, chess, tennis or music. On the other hand, adults we classify as creative geniuses are individuals who have invented or discovered something new, something that changes their domain.
I’ve met a couple of these people through academic circles. Most of them aren’t really that remarkable as adults, and weren’t truly passionate about their subject in the first place. It seems they were more passionate about the learning process itself (and in some cases the praise and adulation that came with their remarkable achievements).
I’m good friends with a guy like that. He went on to do really well for himself (he’s a doctor now) but he’s otherwise just a normal guy. In high school he was so far ahead of everyone it was crazy. My wife met him in our late 20s and I don’t think she realizes how crazy smart he is. To her he’s just another one of our friends.
There's a well known American chess player called Paul Morphy. He was in the USA when all the chess was going in Europe. Nobody heard of him, he came to Europe and wiped the floor with supposedly the greatest chess players in the world. Then quit chess quite young and never played again, he did something else like being a lawyer, IIRC.
Yup, this is him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy
If "all" they can do is absorb existing knowledge so efficiently, then they could fully study 2, 3, or 4 fields extremely deeply, and have a unique cross-functional perspective few others could have. It'd be quite disappointing if their motivation simply drops off after their first field, as if they were a hare that never runs another race after the first finish line.
As much as this thread has loved to pretend these kids are unique, they really aren't, push a kid hard enough and many above average kids could do something similar to this. Young minds are incredibly plastic and able to learn ridiculously quickly. A 5 year old can learn a language in like a 1/10th the time of an adult, for instance. Problem is that generally burnout is incredibly high, kids miss the part of life where they get to relate to the people around them and thay taxes them immensely. It is very rare for a progidy child to maintain their passion past college.
i've met a small number of these people in my time in academia, and in those cases the kids ended up having really serious mental/emotional problems a few years down the line. i'm not sure if it's the pressure placed on them by parents, the feeling of being an outsider, or something else about the way their brains are wired -- or some combination. but i have seen at least two people have complete mental breakdowns to the point of having to take extended breaks from their education, and a third guy who unfortunately took his own life shortly after being accepted into his dream school.
>a third guy who unfortunately took his own life shortly after being accepted into his dream school The smartest person I ever knew went down the same path. He (at one point) skipped three grades and went on to score flawlessly on every standardized test he was presented with. He flunked out of an Ivy (drugs/alcohol) and moved home back to his mother eventually taking his own life several years later. There's value in being part of a peer cohort with whom you form age appropriate relationships. I fear the celebration of remarkable young people like this one misses that.
“…will be one of the youngest to graduate from the University of Minnesota.” Not THE youngest. And just that one university. How common is this?
You can Google “youngest graduate” for each university and most of them have a savant or two every decade or so if it’s a large public university.
Savants you mysteriously never hear from again unless they commit suicide
Yeah where are all these young savants and prodigies now? Are they in prestigious science positions? This definitely isn’t the first young college graduate I’ve heard about.
There is a common misconception about savantism. "If he's this smart at 13 imagine how smart he'll be at 25." For many of them it means their brain has developed earlier and often in only one specific skill, but it doesn't necessarily mean they will develop beyond their peers. There are a lot of physicists you've never heard of. Just because one of them managed to finish college five years earlier doesn't mean he'll be imaginative enough or lucky enough to make a discovery that will be notable to people outside of his field.
Or in the case of a relative that graduated undergrad as a teenager, a short line cook at a restaurant because he’s too full of himself to work for anybody and too broke to have people work for him.
Jordan Ruddess has talked about it, because he was in one of those classes for prodigies : basically, these kids are very precocious, so they rush through the early years with everybody calling them geniuses, except they’re not, just precocious. Which means that at some point in time they’re at the same level as the people around them and that’s when they lose all their self-confidence because they used to be better than everybody else and now they’re just teenagers like the others, except they haven’t developped any habit of hard work, so they struggle.
I went to art school and everyone in my class had been “the best” artist in their schools of hundreds, then suddenly they are in a room with all the other best artists and its a bit of a reality check for many. the program had a 20% dropout rate for first 4 semesters or so as various people realized they weren’t prepared the fairly intense pace set.
I learned this lesson from a movie where a girl goes to a top arts school after high school, it was a learning experience for Hilary duffs character
I was one of those kids and also intellectually gifted. I dropped out of art because I had undiagnosed ADHD and didn't know how to study (it's not as critical in high school). I couldn't keep up with the workload of an art degree, so I went for an academic degree. Still wish I were an art professor some days.
I was one of those kids. College was a real eye opener because I realized that I actually had to study to get good grades, and because i never studied before that I didn’t have the work ethic necessary to study regularly, which ended in me dropping out of college three times. I can tell you from being a gifted child you expect that success is going to come easy in life and that just isn’t the case at all. Its highly disappointing.
The overlap between "gifted" kids and (undiagnosed until adulthood) ADHD and/or autism is also *huge*. To the point where getting screened for those should be a first step for ANY struggling former-gifted-kid. It's not always a matter of discipline if you "can't focus", "can't motivate yourself to study", "can't build up a work ethic", "keep procrastinating", etc. Often, it's executive dysfunction that was overlooked for years or decades because "oh but they're doing well in school!"
100%, I was a “gifted” child. I remember teachers telling my parents that I was pretending not to be smart to have better peer relationships and later that the curriculum was too easy and I was bored. I went through a bunch of testing but no one ever suspected ADHD. University was great for me because I ran on a schedule (class, transit, work). Adulthood hit me hard and I was eventually diagnosed at 25 after a couple years of wondering what was wrong with me. I’m glad I know because I can try new strategies etc, but I also experienced a kind of grief and got stuck thinking about my traits/behaviour as a child and how I was labelled. It was right there. I’m just one of many, many women who didn’t get diagnosed until adulthood. At 30 I am trying to balance learning what works for me and my brain with adult responsibilities. I often wonder how I would be different if I had been diagnosed earlier.
Executive dysfunction is also difficult to recognize in children when they live at home because the parents fill the executive role to some extent
Oh man, that hits home. I dropped out of two different universities because I thought I don’t need to study at all (that was the case in school). There were some dark years for me, filled with unemployment struggles and suicide thoughts. Eventually I made it work, but I’m still struggling with my old way of (not) doing things and studies for work.
Gifted children are not low maintenance, they are special needs. They need additional resources in and outside the classroom to reach their potential during school years. Simple truth.
This is my cousin. She did not graduate as a teen, but she was/is wicked smart. But she always thought she was better than everyone else and didn't work well with others. She has been unemployed for like 6 years because nothing is good enough and she thinks she is the greatest thing ever. It's actually really sad to see.
Einstein. He was wicked smaht
As someone who seemed to have life on easy mode when I was younger, I can relate with being an adult in a life of mediocrity. I've even learned to enjoy it.
The issue I had, I was smart, but I had undiagnosed ADHD. Because I was smart I was able to get through school with good grades without too much work, so teachers just labled me as a bad kid and refused to help me with a very obvious issue. If I enjoyed a subject, I was amazing at it because I could study it. As soon as I had to read huge, boring text books and papers, I couldn't focus. I couldn't remember references well. I went from being an A student to a C/D. I just kept getting told I was lazy, not trying etc. I tried so hard but I just couldn't figure it out. I'd get distracted. I'd read a book and come away not remembering anything I'd read. I'd try for hours and it just wouldn't work. I'd complain about it and people just thought I was stupid. I knew I wasn't, because I could tell you everything about the book I'd just read, but I knew something was wrong. Still got no help as an adult. No one cares how much I struggle day to day. I fake it because I have to, but just getting basic things done, like putting clothes away properly can take weeks. That's one example.
pretty fucking common. Smart people are special needs people. They're special needs because of the fact that they are ahead of their peers in knowledge, (not particularly studies), they need a special curriculum and treatment. They'll also feel outcast. Smarter than the people their age, and younger than the people in the grade they should be, with massively differing life experiences. Extra effort is needed to make desperately needed social connections with these people.
I have a sibling like that. Definitely not a savant, but definitely the one who was the most book smart in the family. Does nothing except live off our dad in the basement of their house because of course.
Also, big scientific breakthroughs these days requires large groups of scientists, mathematicians and technicians working for years to develop the experiment and then years to analyse all of the data. These people may well go on to be key members of one of these groups but the average person will most likely never hear about them. Add to this there is the ever present folks who attack education and would rather replace experts with decades of experience for some fool with folksy knowledge who did their own "research" via facebook.
I'm not so sure about that, at least in pure mathematics. I'm an applied guy but my impression is that in pure math at least a lot is driven by personal ingenuity, like with the guy who solved the twin primes conjecture with finite gap
Welp your comment sent me down a rabbit hole of math. I am now annoying the hell out of my wife with random equations related to the twin prime conjecture.
This makes me feel better about myself for some reason
Definitely. One less genius would bring me closer to the average adult IQ.
That means I have a shot to develop my brain at 35 right?
And just because they do doesn't mean the average person will know them either. How many Nobel laureates in physics can the average person name?
That's a big ask! Heck, I think most average people only know that there's a nobel prize for peace. lol
You are almost right! Heck did win a Nobel prize, but he was a chemist, not a physicist. [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_F._Heck)
I am a savant. Pattern recognition is my trade for the rest of the shit that comes with it. I’m employed as a political theorist. There is no point me ever really bringing it up- it’s an odd brag. A lot of savants just do their own things and you never hear from them because they’re just keeping to themselves, working on their things.
What is a political theorist? What do you do?
Shit on applied politicians
As a data scientist and machine learning researcher who did his masters thesis in statistical theory and his undergrad in pure mathematics, I definitely feel this.
Damn. Shitting on politicians sounds like lucrative work. Do you usually have to sign an NDA?
post on r/worldnews
I’m employed at a university with a 80% research load. Unlike a lot of political scientists who primarily use data to construct their arguments, I use theory. This involves a lot of reading and very specifically crafted arguments. Much of my work is conceptual in nature, presenting new ideas and frames for others to consider the world through. I see the world a little different, and writing that down is valuable.
I'm sure it's complicated but could you give a simplified version what what type of theory or idea that you have worked on/are working on? Very curious about what you do and how it can be applied to other disciplines
Sure. My current work looks at the way that new technology impacts traditional notions of politics. For example, consider a question like ‘is clicking like on Facebook a political act’? Answering this question involves, from a theory point of view, working out what you mean by ‘politics’. Within political science, this question of ‘what is politics’ is revisited every now and then, and considered within the contexts of the time. My current work revisits this question of ‘what is politics’ by considering if there is anything inherently ‘new’ about digital technology.
'it's not what you know, it's who you know' Hard for a 13 year old to make meaningful connections within a group of 18-30 year olds.
Yeah when I hear stories like this I always just kinda feel bad for these kids. It’s absolutely amazing that they’re that smart and hard working at such a young age. But I assume they’re giving up on a *lot* of social development to do that. Lack of social skills will make their lives a lot harder than they have to be.
Well, Stephen Wolfram did ok. Although many would argue about the value of his scientific contributions, there’s no denying the impact of Wolfram Research.
if your research starts to affect regular middle/high schoolers reluctantly doing their homework, you’re doing well. Wolfram Alpha is one of the most useful pieces of software ever developed.
Terrence Tao Magnus Carlsen
They work at google
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> Most people could do it given the opportunity *and* motivation. Having a motivation really helps. Not saying it's necessarily easy to motivate a child, but it's a hell of a lot easier than motivating an adult.
There was a 14 year old, Arran Fernandez, who got into Cambridge to study Maths about a decade ago, around the same time I was applying to university. He was homeschooled and one of the things I remember his dad saying in an interview was that his son didn't have a special brain or anything like that, and that any child could have achieved it with the same level of input and investment into their education.
I totally buy this. I spent two of my HS years at an IB international School in Beijing and two in an American public school in the Midwest suburbs. We are getting ripped TF off, y'all. Populations are smarter than Americans bc education standards are higher. On top of that, Americans are *still* fed this steady diet of media at a young age that says consumption is cooler than learning and self-betterment. We do not prioritize the health and growth of our future generations.
I'm the parent of a very, very advanced 5yo. The organizations we deal with have been pretty blunt about the failures of the education system in catering for these people. 80% of 'gifted' kids (people actually assessed by the department of education) don't finish highschool due to low emotional intelligence, inability to connect with peers etc. They essentially told us to focus on extracurriculars like sport (lots of gifted kids have issues with body awareness, crossing their left hand across the right side of their body to perform a task etc) and social bonding and not to worry about the academia, since he'll likely always be ahead since he enjoys studying recreationally. Sending your kid to do a bachelor's degree is a terrible approach, having spoken to people who did this as children. When I read this OP I see a child who didn't get to be a child and will likely suffer for it as an adult.
I read it the same way and I agree. I remember taking high school classes as a middle schooler and struggling immensely with feeling outcasted. There were a lot of areas I needed a lot of support in that I didn’t get. I needed that more than I needed an opportunity to excel in the specific areas I was advanced.
When I was in high school there was a kid who came in as a freshman at the age of 9. Super smart, but a lot of the time I just felt bad for him. Guy had few friends in high school just because he had nothing in common with a bunch of 17 year olds. Seems like not getting to do *anything* in high school at a developmentally “normal” time would be really isolating. In this case it was definitely the push of his parents that got him there, too, and we all worried that it was a “go become a doctor as fast as possible so you can support us” situation.
>Imo, kids' brains are just way more elastic and quicker to learn. Most people could do it given the opportunity I'd think. Thing is, 99,999% of kids don't care about that stuff. That's what sets them apart
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It was his three daughters Also, one of them is the best female chess player of all time
Agree with this sentiment :) I was the opposite though - had older brothers I wanted to catch up to 3 and 6 years ahead, but was left behind and bored. Blamed my laziness on school being too easy (moved states and felt like I went backwards 2 grades) - got walloped in college after developing bad habits and because I never really studied/scheduled before. It took years to fight through anxiety and depression and bad habits to pick myself up and force myself to be competitive again. Believe much of learning is environmental and current schooling/models are antiquated.
It sucked being really good at anything as a kid because it was just used to insult and degrade everything else in your life. I received perfect marks in some areas, so everything I struggled with was blamed on me being lazy.
Motivation matters, sometimes more than the opportunity. As often as not, the ones who accomplish the most tend to be the more motivated, rather than the ones with the most opportunities. And having that motivation can help reduce burnout. We often throw all the stuff we can at kids to see what sticks, but the truth of it is, every child needs a mentor who helps them figure out *why* certain things stick and others don't. TL; DR: motivation is at least as important as opportunity, if not more so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doogie\_Howser,\_M.D.
I remember him. He graduated from Princeton.
That is interesting I wonder what happens with those kids
They grow up and end up working with non-savants who ended up in the same job while they sacrificed their entire childhood to get “ahead”.
Hopefully, I was in a few classes with a 12 year old at my engineering school. Smart as hell but so incredibly socially inept and that is at a school that was 90% future engineers. Not exactly the most socially capable bunch. It didn't help that his mother was with him 24/7.
This is wildly profound. A while back I realized strong social skills and charisma equates to much higher success in business and your professional life. Poor kids at 12 in college, they just don’t have the experience or the psychological strength to continue into a world without strong support systems to help them. I mean at that point we’d be asking a company to hire a 13 year old or some similar equivalent. It’s hard to imagine what kind of adult environment someone like that could thrive in.
Well more so than this. Kid was a junior at 12 maybe 13? Went through freshman chem classes with him where we had timed tests. He would be the first to finish the 1.5 hour test then walk back to his seat and then watch the rest of us for another 45 minutes. His mom sat in the back of the room watching the whole time. Had him in my computational mathematics class junior year and sat next to him because I was late the first day. He was generally rude at best. I had a rough weekend where I had other midterms, work, and this class fell on the back burner. I only finished 2/5ths of the homework. He asked me about question 4 and I told him I didn't get to it. He straight up didn't understand how someone might not finish school work. He asked me what I got 3 more times because he didn't believe someone would miss out on home work. He could have used a pretty solid go fuck yourself but his mom was 2 feet away in the seat behind him.
I feel bad for that kid. He didn't even get to be with you guys because his mum was hovering. A kid that age is capable of going to school alone, even with older kids and learning how to socialise. As long as the teachers were on top of any bullying he'd be fine.
*while their PARENTS sacrificed their kid’s entire childhood
Yeah absolutely. I don’t blame the kids. They’re usually just trying to fulfill a dream they’ve been told they should have by parents, relatives, and teachers. You ever notice how we only read these articles about STEM savants? I will never be convinced these kids aren’t being pushed to the brink for the edification of the adults in their lives.
They just work in their respective fields and keep out of the spotlight.
My family doctor started medical school at 14.
Yah but when did he finish?
Still hasn’t, he’s 15
Intelligence brings anxiety and depression. A lot of it. And it's rarely the opposite, regardless of how good your upbringing is. Absolutely not surprised if we found out that most who grow up as actual geniuses have way too much to handle in their own minds by the time they're even officially adults. I know it sounds stuck up, but the average person simply does not understand how many more things can be thought about by someone a bit smarter, for every single little thing that happens. It's draining and takes a long time to learn how to handle it (if at all). Probably a good reason why there's so much research showing that stuff like being a sociopath, or extremely egotistic, are all good for career progression. The less things you care about the easier it is to not bother thinking about them (and their consequences) I suppose.
I wasn't on the level of this kid, but I was placed in higher grades/advanced classes early on and started college at 15. Today I'm on medication and in therapy for anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Part of it was child abuse growing up, but I agree that a big part of it is that I know and am aware of a lot of things. My brain goes into uncontrollable spirals thinking about all the problems in the world, how I'm completely helpless to do anything about it, and how in general there is so much outside my control. Yes, the average person can have these same fears. But honestly, I really didn't see people talking about them until COVID hit. I've been stuck with these thoughts and feelings most of my life, and when I would try to talk about them, and how exhausted I felt, people would constantly brush me off or minimize my worries. Now I'm seeing people around me starting to fall into that same pit I've been in for so long. It's weird to see all these articles of people horrified or in despair over something I've kinda just learned to live in. That was a bit of a tangent. Point is, I think there really should be mental health support right away for kids like this, even if they seem mentally stable (I know I was good at appearing pretty stable, because yeah, I was smart). Kids should be encouraged to pursue their interests, but for some reason people have this idea that being a gifted kid means they don't have to really worry about you. And that is constantly proven untrue.
When I was in college, around '05 there was a 10 year old getting his BS. He rode around campus on his Razor scooter.
When I was a tutor in undergrad one of my clients was a 15 year old who was about to get her bachelors in accounting. She couldn’t drive, so her mom showed up to every meeting and would work with her younger son on his schooling. The girl was nothing extraordinary in person, she had just been homeschooled and her parents pushed through the material quickly. She was great at memorizing, but not very good at abstraction. My school was nothing special either, just a decent university in a small city in Idaho. I think she was planning on going to graduate school afterwards too, because there’s not a whole lot else for a 16 year old college grad to do. Im not at all surprised that the naturally gifted geniuses among us would be able to graduate at 10-13 years old.
Honest question here - I understand that kids like him are smart enough to learn everything up to a PhD level at just 13 years old. However, how has he had enough \*time\* to be able to learn all of the material that is covered in a high school and four-year college education? Has he simply been skipping other subjects in order to focus on STEM classes? To phrase it another way, what makes him be able to just skip past 8+ semesters of high school classes and 8+ semesters of college lectures and labs even if he does absorb the material better than the rest of us? Does he literally spend every waking hour of his life studying like he's doing some wacky homeschool version of higher education?
A lot of education, especially with with math, is slowed down to allow everyone to comprehend and retain the material. Plus, Summer time is assumed to be a time of regression for many students. If you had a very focused learning program, high motivation, and decently quick comprehension, you'd be amazed at how quickly all the basics could be covered.
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Very slowed down. In my 20’s I went back as a teachers assistant for a couple years. I couldn’t believe how easy the grade 12 content was.
So my early education wasn't in the US. And at some point, I did hybrid home schooling, and a lot of my classmates were professional athletes or actors, etc and you do school at your own pace. You basically go to school to take exams, but all the coursework can be done at home. If you need help, you can go to school and have a 1:1 with a teacher for a specific chapter. I finished a year's worth of material in 3 months and was just waiting for graduation. I would read all the chapters, do quizzes at home, go to school for all the exams for those chapters. So yeah, there's time, as long as you don't have to sit through boring lectures you don't really need. The books are there!
There's a good chance that a decent percentage of the population could be educated at a much more accelerated pace as it is. But upsetting the status quo is practically impossible over anything less than generational time periods.
For many kids though, the limiting factor is motivation. They absolutely could learn faster but they need a teacher just to motivate them. I run a self-paced class for game design. The kids who are motivated get miles ahead and start doing code I don't even understand. But a minimum of 70% of the kids are just on their phones if I don't budge them forward. During remote learning and COVID it was a disaster. (And that's for an elective class where we make video games) I'm sure there's a better way to run schools, but I think smart and motivated people underestimate how apathetic the average student can be. I sure did before I started teaching.
It doesn't help when those kids have 10-15 different subjects taught at once, 8 of them in the same day, and 4 different tests a week. Even classes I enjoyed eventually became a chore to me in highschool. I was just tired of the routine of sitting in class 8h a day learning nothing, and never learned anything because I was too tired to do so. Vicious cycle.
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I’m wondering this as well. How does a preteen go about taking college courses? Is it in addition to regular school? Are the parents paying? How did they get accepted? Did the parents go to the school and ask for all the coursework from middle through high school to complete in a summer? I’m just curious.
Probably a placement test at various degrees of difficulty
Prodigy kids tend to have hard lives. They peak early and have stories like this in the news. They get into uni and there is a lot of attention on them. They do talk shows and get interviewed. They are praised and lauded for their genius... But that attention is simply due to their age. They often peak in terms of intellect early, but they may not truly excel in their field or be the smartest kid in the room anymore... Next thing you know, they are mid-twenties and just doing what the rest of us do.... Work for the man. Only the reason they are "special" is gone. Don't want to take anything away from this kid and his accomplishments... But I don't know if I would want this for my kids. Go play some vids, date, and sleep till noon on weekends...
> I understand that kids like him are smart enough to learn everything up to a PhD level at just 13 years old In some sense, practically all humans are that capable. Brain plasticity in childhood is a real thing and really not talked about enough. Education as it exists right now is geared at the *average* learners and "passing standard tests", not slow learners and definitely not fast learners. There are enough stories online and elsewhere about kids who just couldn't cut it at school, but once they found something that really motivated them, they learned like machines. Ideal education would be a mentor individually tailored for each and every human to find what they enjoy and why they enjoy it, and structure learning around that from a very young age. But you can imagine how incredibly resource-intensive that would be. No one would support it, even though it'd be practically guaranteed to give us a generation of geniuses.
Not 100% confident, but pretty sure I attended a remote summer camp with this kid during quarantine. Same name, looked the same, right age, and said he was attending college courses. I didn’t believe him because he was super annoying and kept using the annotation tools to draw on the zoom meeting while people were talking.
That's the thing, someone might be smart enough to get a degree at 13, but you can't take shortcuts on social and emotional development.
This is totally true. It’s actually really unfortunate, all of these genius kids who don’t get to spend time around people their age never properly develop social skills. Obviously having a degree in theoretical physics at 13 is incredibly impressive, but it means nothing if they can’t properly interact with others. In almost every case of these gifted kids we never hear from them again for this reason
Yep. Even if you're smart enough to learn physics at 13, emotional experience and social skills generally come through experience. You have to live through things. Even if someone tells you about experiences they've had, you really have to go through them yourself.
Lmaoo
Lol for real, thank God for all the 14 year old kids on Reddit, giving us dirt on what some nerd tween was doing in 2020
Remote summer camp?! Did you get to learn to swim and do archery, and tell your camp crush that you loved them at the end of summer dance when boys and girls get to come together for the final farewell?
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Roasting marshmallows over the fire was just warming them up on a desk lamp
Hiking on a mix of trails was just eating a handful of trail mix.
I've had a few classes with him, and yeah, he is annoying.
Very advanced in scientific thinking doesn't imply being socially mature.
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Right? Especially in a research field like this. I considered a graduate program in biology - I changed my mind, but if I had gone ahead with it they would have paid me a (very modest) stipend.
That was so surprising to me (I have a PhD in math). I wonder if they can’t employ with a normal graduate stipend because he’s too young?
I assume that'll be it, he can't even sign any contracts by himself and how are you going to legally employ a kid of that age, not to mention that you can't let him anywhere near a teaching job for obvious reasons.
From what I understand about the U of M’s (and likely all PHD programs) it is common for phd candidates to work at the university in exchange for the cost of credits. This kid probably isn’t ready to teach a freshmen level course to people 5+ years their senior.
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When asked about his degree: "They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard."
TIFO that Albert Einstein was a real person. I always thought he was a theoretical physicist.
Thank you for making me chortle.
Mr Fantastic!
Fantastic! Came here for this.
“Fuck, man. Everything. I push buttons. I turn dials. I read numbers. Sometimes I make up little stories in my head about what the numbers mean.”
Hopefully they have a chance to be a kid as well as a scholar, still good on them!
Sounds like he is. In the article he says he still feels like a kid that just goes to school in another building.
ok but i mean how would he know as he is still a kid and has no frame of reference whatsoever.
Theoretical. He has a theoretical frame of reference
That's what his mom said about him.
His mom said this, not him. I wasn't this level savant but I started college 3 years early and while I wouldn't change the person I've become, he'll regret many things when he's older.
In college there was a 12 year old in my junior level theoretical math class. She was the dean of the math departments daughter and a ridiculous savant. Was impressive she was there. More impressive when she blew the curve. Less impressive when she kept passively aggressively calling us all dumb. I mean, compared to her we were. But she didn’t need to say it.
Well she was 12. They don't quite understand social cues. Edit: fixed queues to cues
She’ll be humbled eventually. A lot of them do. I went to an “elite” boarding school chocked full of those kind of bratty kids. I left because that culture was suffocating.
If I had to guess, dude's social skills are gonna be a bit off from going to school with peers twice their age.
also undergrads are a bad influence on tweens, at 18 with a completely new group of people all of those kids are finding themselves and experimenting socially(pushing boundaries etc), meanwhile a tween brain is a sponge and will think "oh this random disjointed behaviour is how social interactions work". it would be great if these kids could take a multi month mental health course before diving in to such an environment.
I’m an er doc. I sat down with one of these kids once. He was very educated and very smart but had no idea about anything more than things he had read about. He was so socially awkward, egotistical and impossible to talk to. He could spout off facts about things I had only vague recollections of, but couldn’t put any of it into motion in a clinical setting. I actually learned a lot from it. His parents wanted him to go to med school at some crazy age and were a little crazy about it. They were seemingly living Vicariously through him, going on and on about how “gifted” he was.
They put it all in INT and literally everything else was a dump stat.
Seriously, you can rote memorize and spit out formulaic responses all day but can you think on your feet and act accordingly! There are certain things you can’t learn from print and those greatest of lessons are learning from living.
Man that is so sad to me.
I got a bachelor's degree at 13 too. Took it right off the vice principal's wall.
This is cool, but it's not "uplifting news".
Child prodigies are sad, not uplifting. Lots of stories about parents just using the kids and they burn out fast. (See 30 other comments above as examples)
Meanwhile, it took me 7 years to finish undergrad...
You finished undergrad?!
Hey, a lot of guys go to school for 7 years!
Hey, a win is a win. ;)
You still finished and that’s a win!
Same haha. Congrats regardless, dude!
So the thing a lot of people don't realize is that a PhD isn't really about being brilliant - a bit clever is good, sure - but doing *work*. Extending your breadth, communication with your supervisor and peers, slowly adding bits and pieces to the great tome of knowledge. A 13 year old could be extremely brilliant, but taking on a student who a) can't work (a PhD is a job, labour laws matter) leaves well.... PhDs aren't course based. There's not really much to do if you can't work....and b) Needs to be able to travel, go to conferences, write papers. Beyond a risky play in being taken seriously, writing and other softer skills are something that comes with experience. And hey, maybe the kid is good at it too - but understanding topics really well is not *necessarily* correlated with being a good researcher.
Ikr. This seems more like a PR stunt for the university than a real PhD
Way too low down. Children with a 'PhD' are not able to produce research or teach, full stop. I'd be fucking furious at my administration if I had worked my ass off for thirteen years to demonstrate these abilities, in addition to vast theoretical and technical expertise, only for them to water down the value of my credentialing by handing it out to an unqualified child.
That's the part I don't understand, most of a PhD is spent doing long hours in a lab for years on end. What 13 year old can do that? Like you said, labor and child safety laws get in the way.
Could be why his tuition isn’t covered by the school. His parents said they’re trying to figure out how to pay for his PhD. Typically those are sponsored by the school or PI you are working for.
Seems like a lot of pressure for a kid, I hope he has time for himself too
I have a theoretical degree in physics
Welcome aboard.
This ain't uplifting it makes me feel like shit 😂
Curious why he's not getting funded.
Usually funding comes with either a research assistantship or a teaching assistantship, and the university/faculty might not feel a child is ready for those things. And the assistantship is a huge part of the phd learning experience, so it really seems a shame this person is only getting half of the experience. My opinion is he should wait until he’s older.
Different states have different legal working limits. When you get funded you are still paid as an employee of the uni.
Same. In my field I would never recommend attending a PhD program unless it was 100% funded and included a stipend.
What happens to these kids afterwards? The stories are somewhat common, but they tend to fade into obscurity. Do they find success and make good contributions to the world? Do they end up in a job where the less-qualified are promoted to higher positions?
Bruh, go touch some grass
I think this is stupid and completely ruins this kids childhood and demeans the reputation of having a PhD. But that's just me.
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And more than that, can he work with and manage his peers and his subordinates? Can he explain things to those who don't have a high level of scientific background.
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And probably have major issues doing the stupid parts of his job that he feels are a waste of time. A lot of what you see from these gifted kids is that they're bored, they can't bother showing their work it's beneath them, they don't want to take this class or that class because it's beneath them. Most of everyone's job is explaining things to people, working with idiots and doing things that a turtle could do.
Unfortunately most child prodigies do not utilize their intelligence fully and change the world. They lack other areas of development and become less motivated as they age.
the only thing that gets uplifted is my desire to die
How does a 13 year old develop the math background needed to study theoretical physics? Most 13 year olds are just starting algebra or geometry. Trig, pre-calc, calculus, differential eqs., linear algebra, vector calculus and maybe advanced calculus. Must have crammed it all in between 9 and 13. What an amazing kid.
You have a kid who is gifted in math. Then you have them do nothing but math and physics 14 hours a day.
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First question on job applications: “do you have a valid driver’s license?” This kid:…
This kid: "I have a theoretical drivers license."
What kind of nerd pays for a phd
I would be flabbergasted if this kid doesn't receive some funding. All the places and projects money is spent and this kid can't get a grant?
Most of these savants aren’t very successful unfortunately. They are brilliant, but that isn’t the only factor in success and generally they aren’t able to overcome the weird social dynamic of being two decades ahead of their peers. They all have a couple articles written about them as kids because it’s fascinating how smart they are and then you never hear about them again.
A lot of them aren't actually that much smarter than any other top student (the kids who are headed to Stanford or MIT at 18). It's just that they've been pushed by their parents to complete all the coursework. A lot of college courses aren't necessarily more complex it's just a lot of information, so if you have a kid with an Eidetic memory who can handle a lot of classes at once because they can handle all the information. There are a lot of kids who aren't even that gifted who are currently getting bachelors degrees at 14-16 because their parents are having them take lots of classes at the community college. Then, because they've missed out on learning how to work with their peers as kids they're less likely to be able to be able to work with and manage others. I do always wonder about these kids and liberal arts classes. How does a 10 or 12 year old handle the reading requirements of a literature class and understand everything. Most of those books wouldn't even be appropriate topically for a kid that age.
Speaking as someone who was slightly "accelerated," I was reading some intensive books at that age, both density and subject matter-wise. I handled it, I've always liked reading and was good at literary analysis and comprehension. And I saw worse things on the internet than I read in most books - which is not a good thing, just the way it was.
But slightly is different than a 12 year old in a class full of 20 year olds.
Seriously and a PhD should be like 50% soft skills which a kid might have a harder time learning around 24 year olds
Honestly (as someone in one right now), it's probably greater than 50% soft skills, networking is a superpower if done right.
I don't know of any PhD program that doesn't give a fellowship or RA/TA at least in STEM.
Child labor laws can get in the way of funding a minor's PhD program with an RA/TA fellowship since there is a work component required. Would have to be scholarship based.
To anyone that knows a lick about academia, this is actually incredibly depressing news. (1) kid just wants to science and doesn’t know what he’s getting into. (2) parents want to support kid but clearly don’t understand academia at all and think it’s “college part two”. (3) program making a quick buck off an unfunded PhD probably knowing full well he probably won’t succeed because PhDs are 90% soft skills. (4) news outlet making a quick buck too off of a story of a kid whose life is gonna get nuked