I’m really torn on news like this.
I’ll get it out of the way that I am jealous. I wish I had been able to do what she did. I also think that if more people cared about education on this level, we could really get a significantly smarter population and start to solve some of the problems in the world.
Having said that, I have concerns over what her life is like. I would need a lot more details to feel comfortable that this kind of lifestyle is healthy for someone. She missed out on most of her childhood at this point, a time most adults look back on fondly as a time when they had no responsibilities. I have so many follow-up questions that the article doesn’t address.
- Is she truly self-motivated or does she have someone like her parents urging her to do this?
- Given a choice, would she do it again?
- What was her workload like? Was she constantly studying or is she lucky enough to not need to?
Also, more for my curiosity than anyone else’s well-being:
- How do you even sign a 10 year old up for college?
- Do professors give leniency to an 11 year old in class or are they getting the same experience an 18 year old would get?
These are all really excellent questions. My son skipped a grade early in gradeschool, and I am fortunate enough to have a friend who had a similar experience as this young lady (albeit not to the same extent) being hyper-accelerated through school, so we were able to interview him about his experience when making decisions about how to handle our exceptional kiddo’s education.
It was not a fun conversation, and as a result we elected to just let our son take advanced classes when possible and not really push to have him skip additional grades or do any of the wacky stuff with enrolling in college as a child or what have you. Of course we’re going to push him to take stuff that is challenging whenever possible, and I’d love for him to graduate high school with as much college credit as possible–but I’m not about to steal his youth in pursuit of putting a PhD on his wall before he’s old enough to vote.
The short version is that our friend was a very miserable child. His advancement essentially meant he had no peers, and especially among teenagers, the acceleration just put a bullseye on his back, since the people who surrounded him either resented him or saw him as a target for bullying. Even professional educators at times resented him. He was adamant that it was a thing he would never put his own children through.
Is that a typical experience? I have no idea; after all, being a child in higher education is already well outside ordinary experience. But the story was enough to make me worry for the child whenever I read a headline like this.
I was an advanced learner and started college at 16. The only reason I didn’t start at 14 was because I had to get a highschool diploma or GED to qualify for financial assistance. It took me 18 months after acceptance into university to get the adult education diploma.
Up until then I had moved along with my class, always placed in the advanced courses.
Basically school sucked for me.
In my experience being in the 99+% sucks socially growing up and even into adulthood. There is no easy path for these kids. They do not fit in anywhere. There is no “right” path for all of them. Each has to figure it out on their own and suffer through it.
She missed out on most of her childhood
Did she? What is this statement based on? Do we know that she never had a birthday party or sleepover? Do we know she never dug a hole in the backyard or watched cartoons?
We don’t know, and that’s precisely what my comment was talking about. I want to know more.
Although we can use an educated guess that if you’re getting a doctorate you probably don’t have a ton of free time, at least not nearly as much as a normal student her age has. Even if we assume she doesn’t need to study at all, a doctorate still takes up a lot of someone’s time, and doesn’t leave a ton of time for watching cartoons.
You didn’t ask, you stated she missed her childhood.
Your other questions are answered in the article. She says over and over how pleased and thankful she is, and more than one person cites her insatiable desire to learn. The world is full of people. Some of them are crazy academics. I’m not so threatened by this story that I need her to be unhappy.
Nor am I going to say that a kid who used their childhood to learn “missed out.” A kid who blew it all on Minecraft missed out on a lot as well if we’re going to be honest.
I feel like you’re weirdly aggro about this discussion. I don’t want my message to come off as criticism or hate, I’m trying to express that I’m concerned about another person. If she really is happier because of her path, then that’s great and more kids should attempt this lifestyle. But I just don’t have enough evidence for that fact, and I would like to hear more. Most of the positive evidence is from a short article.
Right now I have more anecdotal evidence saying this is unhealthy in this comment section than I do the contrary, so I want to be proven wrong. I don’t want to be correct that someone had a bad experience.
Your other questions are answered in the article.
They really aren’t. Of course she’ll say she’s thankful, most people would when talking to a reporter. I don’t imagine many 17 year olds would immediately start bad-mouthing their parents right away, especially considering I’d expect the parents to be present in the interview process since she’s a minor by U.S. standards.
And of course the instructors are complimentary, you’d hear the same compliments about any student who asked questions and went to office hours. They aren’t particularly unique for her experience, frankly. I wouldn’t put too much weight on them being evidence of her happiness.
Perhaps down the road she’ll give an interview and talk about her experience more, once she’s more independent and had more time to process and reflect. Then perhaps my questions will be properly answered. I can only hope so, and I can only hope she reflects positively.
A kid who blew it all on Minecraft missed out on a lot as well if we’re going to be honest.
I never said anything to the contrary. Both can be true, they aren’t mutually exclusive. I would agree spending too much time glued to a screen is also not a healthy lifestyle for a child
