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Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

news.mit.edu

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Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#61

Post by jjaredsimpson »

Retric wrote: post #51
rtl49 wrote: post #22

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” I think this impressive achievement is more a testament to the role that aspirations acquired during childhood play in determining a person's success than it is a reflection of thi…

I find the idea that the absolute best thing for a highly intelligent person to do is get to collage as soon as possible is a little sad. Life is not a race.

Some people enjoy the race. Seems like you are implying his time could've been better spent "doing kid stuff."

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#63

Post by yeukhon »

wodenokoto wrote: post #53

I just don't understand how a 5 year old can comprehend a college level course. How does he know enough math to follow along any scientific course? How can he be well enough versed in literature to follow along a liberal arts course, or history to comprehend a sociology course?

Maybe his IQ is higher than an average person? That would be my guess.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#65

Post by newjersey »

thisone wrote: post #43
hackerboos wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was 5 years old I had trouble mixing up the letters b and d. Given an MIT course at that age I probably would have ignored it in favor of playing outside.

I still mix my small B and small D, and my left and right. Five year old me would've loved a higher level of education though. School was incredibly boring.

We had a new teacher for maths in eighth grade. I remember how enthusiastic he was about set theory. He was so excited to talk about it and reminisced that the first time he saw set theory was in the second year of college.

Granted our stuff was just introductory stuff but I doubt I'd care the slightest between AND and OR and associate them with intersection and union if it wasn't for the teachers.

Now my professor in college who teaches operating systems? She could not be more of a downer. You go ask her a question and she says "I can't answer any questions off the top of my head. I am not a genius." Never has she ever said "let's see" or "let's try to figure this out". Her level of enthusiasm makes me wonder why she even teaches at all. She appears exhausted and sad.

To go a little off topic, I want a universal basic income (and universal free healthcare) so that people who don't like the jobs they do or would like to take a break can do so without worrying about money.

Well, I guess my point is school can be boring or interesting depending on the teachers around you. This seems rather obvious. My hypothesis is that teachers who want to teach are likely to be better teachers than those who are just there because they need money.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#66

Post by ctdonath »

sannee wrote: post #38
allendoerfer wrote: post #6

As long as he did not exclusively learn technical stuff but also got a humanistic education, which we do not know, and enjoyed his childhood, which I think he did, because you cannot perform like that without enjoying it, I think this is pretty amazing parenting. You could find other reasons to nitpick (Did he do sports? Did he develop social competences by interacting with other kids?), but even if these things are…

You have to realize the fact that humans have some really annoying bugs. a) The first one is the fact that we want (mostly) to help each other and make each other happy. This looks benign, but combined with b) can be really irritating b) Humans are bad at empathy. You might enjoy humanistic education or sports and so you automatically think that everyone else does too. This probably worked fine for our ancestors (get…

You missed one critical bug:

c) Most humans just won't "do it". As a child, student, teacher, and parent I've realized that most tasks really aren't that hard, and by far the greatest hindrance to expedient success is an irrational unwillingness to "just do it".

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#67

Post by HAL9OOO »

rtl49 wrote: post #22

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” I think this impressive achievement is more a testament to the role that aspirations acquired during childhood play in determining a person's success than it is a reflection of thi…

Well put, I frequently read stories like this and wonder if I could have done the same if I wasn't constantly being distracted by family arguments/being poor/being envious of other's situations or wasting so much time on video games. I feel regret almost every single day and constantly feel 1 or 2 years behind the curve. Even now I don't have a singular vision like this kid probably because I get so distracted by real life tasks.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#68

Post by allendoerfer »

codingdave wrote: post #13
allendoerfer wrote: post #6

As long as he did not exclusively learn technical stuff but also got a humanistic education, which we do not know, and enjoyed his childhood, which I think he did, because you cannot perform like that without enjoying it, I think this is pretty amazing parenting. You could find other reasons to nitpick (Did he do sports? Did he develop social competences by interacting with other kids?), but even if these things are…

I'm not even sure it matters how broad his education was, if (as you said) he has been happy with his life, but also as long as he is adaptable enough to switch directions if he becomes unhappy with his direction later in life. Many of us old folk change direction over the years. The key to a happy life in the long run is not to know everything when you are young, or to have picked the right direction from the start,…

I think a basic understanding of history, culture and how our society works is absolutely required. I think it is our responsibility to prevent at least the worst mistakes we did in the past and preserve at least the best achievements.

We have turned in circles in the past and will do it again if we do not get that we turned in circles.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#69

Post by rtl49 »

russnewcomer wrote: post #52
rtl49 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My point in typing up this story is not to say that I am or was awesome. Are you sure? Being a smart fellow, you must know that your experience is not evidence that this young man was not "pushed" too much and that he will "be fine." That said, my suspicion is that Rungta's early achievement is not cause for concern about his social development. Conducting research, for instance, is an intensely collaborative experi…

> Are you sure? Well, of course, all of us deal with pride and so part of my motivation to type up the story is that I'm proud of what I've accomplished, yeah. > Being a smart fellow, you must know that your experience is not evidence that this young man was not "pushed" too much and that he will "be fine." Of course my experience is not evidence of someone else's experience. However, I have experience being homescho…

I won't speculate on your motives, I'd just like to point out that the story you've related simply doesn't provide a counterpoint to the idea that rapid academic advancement might lead to developmental problems or result from undue pressure. All of the accomplishments you cite could be expected of a precocious student, and could go hand in hand with adjustment issues (and seem to have done so in your case as a college student).

I'm not claiming that the subject of this article should be expected to have such problems (see my other comments), only that your story doesn't serve its stated purpose.

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