<p>I was struck on so many levels…the age of the young woman-19, the fact that she is the youngest engineer to graduate from Penn, and the youngest African-American engineer in the country.</p>
<p>If you ever wonder if you are doing the right thing by your child…think on these words by Britney Exline:
Exline owes part of her success to her parents, Chyrese and Christopher Exline.
In an interview with Ebony magazine, Chyrese said of her parenting,”I made sure they remained committed even when they wanted to quit. They learned you can’t quit an activity just because it’s hard. Sometimes you need to stick with something. That’s the only way to learn how to persevere and overcome true obstacles. Eventually, it becomes a part of you. I believe this.”</p>
<p>Not to denigrate her, she’s better than me, but this isn’t all that uncommon here in Michigan for Whites, Jews, and Asians. Certainly not average, but not exceedingly rare. At least the graduating at 19. Speaking 5 languages (assuming at a fairly universal “conversant” level) is rather uncommon as far as I can see if that’s really true.</p>
<p>I would say that what she did was very rare, no matter what.</p>
<ul>
<li>Graduating college at age 19.</li>
<li>High course load every semester: never had fewer than 5 courses per semester, with 6.5 at least once (assuming that 4 is a normal full time course load – her university requires 32-36 credits to graduate, which comes out to 4 to 4.5 courses per semester if each course is 1 credit).</li>
<li>Major in computer science with minors in math, psychology, and classical studies.</li>
<li>Speaks Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, Arabic and German (hmmm, 6 instead of 5 mentioned elsewhere; 7 including English).</li>
</ul>