drewny

I met this 15 year old down the street who is a graduate student... He says he plans to get a doctorate and turn professor by 17... My mind is kinda blown right now! I'd like to see what you guys think!

bubblesocks

It's nice to have goals... I guess... I certainly didn't know what I wanted to do at 15. Though if I were his parent/adviser/mentor/whatever, I'd be telling him not to be in such a hurry to grow up. You don't have to be Doogie Howser just because you're smarter than all the other kids.

Sligh_Anarchist

Would you happen to be this 'fifteen year old down the street'?

sakky

That would mean that he plans to beat the world record.

Woman, 19, becomes youngest college professor - TODAY People

Well, I suppose records are made to be broken.

armstrong101

Is she a full-professor or just an assistant prof or equiv?

TheMan777

How can you sufficiently teach when you cannot relate to half of your class? Why would anyone be in such a rush. I very much doubt a 17 year old could take teaching in lecture halls with 200 students, many of whom are older and some who will not have respect because of the age difference.

Teaching Assistant - definitely. It will give you an understanding of how to teach at smaller scales and will give you time to grow and have more work experience, so that when you are mature enough to tackle on big lecture halls, you will have great options where to teach.

zapakovex

He didn't say anything about being a GOOD professor...

safetypin00

You know, I love science and research and I generally really like learning, and even *gasp* studying. I like communicating science too.. but you know, I really liked being a kid too. I loved playing pranks in middle school, having time to do slightly illegal **** in highschool, having time to, I don't know, skip class to go to the park. I mean, maybe these people have the time to do that too, since they are very intelligent, but I cannot imagine the pressure they face. I put enough pressure on myself to succeed and I am stressed enough about things already (because they are important to me and I genuinely want to be good at what I do, as do most aspiring scientists, I think), but in their cases, man, I don't know.. being in the public eye like the girl above, I don't know, I think I'd have a mental breakdown down the road. But maybe not.

In any case, I am not at all jealous of them. To me, my desire to be in science isn't to be the smartest one, win a Nobel prize, or whatever, it is just to understand a little more about the world. And so, kudos to these people, they are hopefully doing what they really want to do and enjoying the ride. Out of the billions of people on this world, yes, some are exceptional. Personally, I don't need to be exceptional, coming from a crappy, crappy, crappy, country, I am happy that I have the means to succeed and do what I like in Canada, that's good enough for me.

wis75

The extremely gifted don't fit in with bright or even averagely gifted students in the childhood world. For such a student exploring academic subjects is far more interesting than the activities of their agemates. Socially they may suffer- but they don't have a peer group in their hometowns due to the extremely small numbers at their level. Asynchrony in development is the hallmark of giftedness, it is more pronounced the higher the IQ. Consider a comparison with a bright student being required to associate only with severely retarded individuals as a child. How frustrating would it be to say be an 8 year old restricted to a world of preschool toys? Or to have ideas that none of the children around you cared about or comprehended? Or to have the typical high sense of moral standards in the average childhood's world? Being the college nerd who studies on weekends instead of merely socializing is so tame in comparison.

This young adult was allowed to progress at his pace and not forced to find possibly criminal activites to occupy his mind while sitting in incredibly boring classes with children who couldn't relate to him. What many good students find stressful may be a breeze for most levels of gifted students but students at his level are at/near the top and just as far removed from the average gifted student as the average student is removed from the top HS students.

One size does not fit all. We need to accomodate both ends of the Bell curve- the severely gifted as well as the severely retarded. It sounds like this person's needs were met- he is lucky he wasn't forced into being somebody he can't be. Before making disparaging comments posters need to educate themselves on giftedness. Getting into a PhD program doesn't require being gifted, but those eligible certainly have the intelligence to easily research the field and try to understand. The fact that this person wants to be a professor instead of hiding in a research lab speaks well for his socialization. Enough lecture from me.

sakky

Probably just an assistant prof. Full professor would imply tenure, which she would not yet have. But then again, this was a university in S Korea, so it's difficult to compare to a US tenure-track position.

Well...that implies that teaching actually matters. Yet the fact is - particularly at the top research universities- it frankly doesn't matter very much how well you teach or whether you can relate to your students. What matters is your research, and if that is strong, your teaching can be mediocre. Let's face it: many faculty members at the top research universities are subpar teachers.

As a case in point, consider Ted Kacyznski, better known as the Unabomber. He was noted for having a bizarre, antisocial personality at least since his undergrad days at Harvard, and certainly through his grad student days at Michigan. But academic hiring committees didn't seem to care for his research ability was unquestioned. He took a position as the youngest assistant professor in the history of Berkeley, where he gained infamy among the students for bizarre lectures and poor classroom preparation, and earned notably poor teaching ratings. But that didn't matter because his research was so strong that he was widely expected to win tenure had he not abruptly quit only to resurface nearly a decade later as a notorious killer-by-mail.

where he was widely recognised as a teacher likely to get tenure. He abruptly resigned in 1969.

BBC NEWS | Special Report | Unabomber | Profile: Theodore Kaczynski

The truth of the matter is that, if the Unabomber had not been criminally murderous, but was merely painfully antisocial and lacked pedagogical ability of any kind, he would have nonetheless won tenure, if not at Berkeley, then certainly at some other research university, purely on the strength of his distinguished publication record. Many other professors have done exactly that. You don't really need to be a strong teacher to be placed and be tenured at a research university.

Mr.Zoo

a professor at some small town community college is very different from a professor in a real university

StrangeLight

^^^ i really hope mr. zoo becomes a professor at some small town community college.