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Eight Year Old Physics Student Admitted to College
paris writes to tell us that The Korea Herald is running a story about Song Yoo-guen, the youngest university student that Korea has ever seen. At eight years old Song is already talking about building flying cars and defying Newton's law of gravity while others his age are attending the first grade. He completed his elementary, junior-high, and high school curricula in just nine months, something that usually takes 12 years, and has been admitted as a freshman to the physics department of Inha University.
Hang on, explaining or regurgitating what his parents told him? All this smacks of publicity stunt... both for the anxious parents (it'll help junior in our hyper-competitive society) and a middling Korean university (at best).
Is this worse than drafting or buying a very young sportsman? Whether you play soccer in the English Premier League at the age of 16 or you get a PhD at the age of 16 you will not be able to grow up in the same way as others, but with that kind of talent comes certain issues. If they hold him back and force him to "be his age", it will most likely severly hurt his intellectual growth.
I talked about building flying cars at the age of 6. In fact, I built one. It amazing what legos and some good old childhood imagination can do.
"The interview was conducted mainly with the senior Song since Yoo-geun is lacking in his ability to communicate with adults."
Something tells me that he might no be ready for college just yet. . .
I'm sorry, but in what parallel dimension do they teach maturity in the school system?
In all the schools I went to, the clique-ized and institutionalized immaturity was actively supported by the teaching staff that openly favored the "popular" kids. The end result when this cancer has fully metastasized is national news stories of the football team stuffing foriegn object up the asses of other students while the coach looks on approvingly. Google on "mepham high football". And that's the best case. Worst case is Columbine.
Maybe that's teaching about the real world, but don't you dare call it maturity.
It's a good point, the difference between intelligence and wisdom. It's relatively easy to learn something, even Schrodinger's equation. It's far more difficult to try and explain the implications, or to formulate your own perspective. Breakthroughs in knowledge come from experience and creating your own version of the universe, not what is taught.
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I took a course in BS Physics and I had a classmate like that. He entered University at the age of 10 direct from grade 5. His teachers noticed him sleeping most of the time in classes but when tested he knew more than his teachers. He was accelerated to a special science high school for above-average kids but after 6 months his teachers told his parents that they have nothing more to teach him. He was then sent directly to university where he was enrolled in the BS Math, BS Physics and MS Physics courses at the same time! He is good! He can compute sines and cosines in his head and can sum a taylor series without writing anything down. When he became my lab mate, we would use him as a calculator because he can compute much faster than our electronic calculators. During the time spent entering numbers on the calculator he would be able to tell us the results. We just decided to call out the numbers to him rather than have the calculator do it for us. He is a walking calculator. That was more than twenty years ago. Ever since graduating from university I have sought to find out if he has somehow made a significant contribution to physics commensurate with his abilities. After scouring newspapers and the university newsletters, I have found none. It was a disappointment. I don't know if going to university at such an early age was the right thing he did. Obviously, he was far too advanced to stay in grade 5. However, I doubt it if being forced to study in the university at his age was the right approach. He was interviewed by a newspaper once when he was my classmate. He was asked how he felt about being accelerated from grade 5 to university in less than a year. I can't forget what he said in the interview. He said he felt lonely because he has no friends in the university. All the others guys want to talk about is their girlfriends while all he wanted to do was build a paper airplane and sail it across the classroom.
You know, I had a chance to start College at age 14, not quite 8, but still. I'm really glad I didn't take it.
Sure, highschool sucked. But highschool sucked for a whole lotta people. I read a lot on my own time, and I don't think humanity was deprived of any potential fruits of my intellect while I was spending my efforts avoiding football games and vainly attempting to figure out how to talk to girls.
When I started college at the normal age, I had a blast and did well academically.
I remember reading an article about what prodigies were up to 20 years later (looking at what happened to a bunch of kids who'd gone into college before puberty, which apparently there was a rash of in the 70s) and none of them were doing anything *that* earth-shaking. All smart men and women, sure, but no nobel prizes.
Think of it this way: You're a professor starting a new research project. Which early PhD student do you want to be your research assistant, the 24 year old with an apartment and a settled life, or some kid who'se just started the roughest years of puberty? They both have the same amount of education, and the kid is way more impressive *for his age* but what the hell do you care about someone being impressive for their age? You want work to get done. I really suspect this kind of thing happens more to stoke parental egos than anything else. It just doesn't make that much sense to get so far off of the clock that your society expects of you.
There are a whole lot of square pegs out there, and the standard education system is nothing but round holes. Some parents give their kids pills or push them onto the chearleading team in order to make them round pegs. Some parents look around frantically for square holes for their precious square pegs. I personally am a big believer in the value of spending a few years getting whacked in the head by a hammer as society tries to cram you down the damn round hole. The adult world isn't that much different, and you learn to deal with it without developing a massive ego or the belief that nothing is right if it doesn't feel like a special magical little cradle created just for unique little you.
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