16 year old graduating college, headed to Harvard for PhD

Ghostt
Thu, 02 May 2013 01:31:43 +0000

I can see that sentiment (lost childhood) expressed for the situation of a young teenager off to an intense academic environment like MIT, but Colorado had the reputation of being a more fun type of campus (it tends to rank very well on “party school” listings)-- I’m sure that Natasha was focused on her studies, but my point is that if she was intellectually capable of keeping up in the classes, then she may very well have had more time for leisure activities than many other high schoolers.



The kind of person who would start college before she enters puberty and then gets into “a Ph.D. program in atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University on a three-year National Science Foundation fellowship” at 16 is highly unlikely to have more time for “leisure activities” than a high school student.

The article supports my claim. This girl served on a bunch of boards and societies at her university, and participated in research and internship programs:



Environmental Center Director Dave Newport remembered when Goss walked into his office in the summer of 2009 and said, “So, I have been looking at everything the Environmental Center does and I think I can help you a lot. And the good news is you don’t have to pay me because I’m only 13.”

While at CU, Goss has also been a Norlin Scholar, a Marjorie Skiff Rose Scholar and a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar. She won an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program grant while working as an intern in a water chemistry lab.



The only difference between her and a high-achieving high school student, it seems to me, is that she’s significantly smarter.

Frankly, I question the idea that someone whose cognition develops more quickly than normal needs the same amount of time to experience “a normal childhood” as most people.