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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

#111

Post by jnbiche »

evook wrote: post #31
ww2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most of the stuff is rational trivia" --- rational trivia, I like the word.

I don't know if you're beeing sarcastic or not. If so, excuse me please. Anyway you are probably right. I am still not sure about that phrasing. What I wanted to refer to, is that the Stuff you get teached at MIT still isn't any harder or easier than the stuff you can read or maybe already have read in books anyway. When I started college my profs where constantly referring to Tanenbaum, Dijkstra and co. Texts I have…

Perhaps you shouldn't extrapolate your experience to that of students at MIT (or other universities outside of your country you've not attended, for that matter)?

I'm in the U.S., and I can tell you that having gone to a good, but regular state university for undergrad, and then to much more prestigious university for grad school, the difference between the two was striking. I went from being one of the smarter students in the class, to one of the least smart (or at best, the middle). I expected this university to be better, but it was quite a shock just how much better it was.

Is it possible that what they teach at MIT might go beyond the "trivia" or rote memorization that you describe being taught at your country's schools?

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

#112

Post by skiphs »

erroneousfunk wrote: post #92
eddotman wrote: post #49

I've hung out with Ahaan at school several times -- some people in the comments here are speculating that going to university this young might make it hard to adjust (socially), but honestly I assumed he was like ~20 (i.e. just like any other college-age dude). I had no clue he had such a neat backstory of how he got to MIT!

Yeah, there was a guy at my alma mater (Olin College of Engineering) who entered at 14 or 15. He was perfectly normal and well-adjusted. I mean, it was a weird cloistered tech school environment, so "normal" and "well-adjusted" are relative here, but I also didn't realize he was so young until he mentioned it. I mean, sure, you get the occasional Ted Kaczynski, but the vast majority of kids I've heard of entering col…

A better example for this crowd would be Hans Reiser, who skipped high school and went straight to UC Berkeley.

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

#113

Post by cryoshon »

IshKebab wrote: post #78
Retric wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. It's a race to learn as much as you can before your brain loses plasticity. I certainly wish some of my teachers had spent more time teaching the people that cared and less time helping the D students that didn't. It definitely resulted in a few wasted years of education for me.

Your brain doesn't lose plasticity until you're dead. Ever hear of someone remembering a conversation they had at age 70? The neurons had to form new synapses (plasticity) for that to happen.

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

#114

Post by allendoerfer »

ausjke wrote: post #91

The school system is really best for the kids-in-the-middle, i.e. not the best fit for the really talented, as the case with this MIT kid here, neither is it for the D/F students. Public school was originated in Europe for training workers if memory serves me right. Since Bush the public education system is more geared towards to the D/F students nonetheless, i.e., the no child left behind policy, a road to hell. Thi…

> Public school was originated in Europe for training workers if memory serves me right.

Actually, no. The idea is associated with Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightment and stuff like this. This was years before workers had to be educated. It was actually about humanism and liberty from the catholic church.

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

#115

Post by cryoshon »

Spearchucker wrote: post #16
littletimmy wrote: post #9

I don't know man, I think there's something to be said about having a childhood. Being from India myself, I know the tremendous pressure parents put on kids to succeed. I hope that this kid wasn't subject to the same.

Agree with you. My wife and I are already arguing over the future of our 3-year-old. She wants him to learn to read and write. I want him to play, have time to be a boy, get in trouble, kiss a girl, and have a care-free childhood. We're so obsessed with money, and forget all about the one currency that really matters. Time. Time to live . I'd rather he were average academically, and experience life exceptionally.

"Time to live" for the purpose of "experiencing life" was found to be inconsistent with extracting profit and has been deprecated. In future versions of the iPeasant app, we hope to increase profit-seeking behavior and reduce pesky bugs like desire for freedom.

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

#116

Post by spdionis »

HAL9OOO wrote: post #67
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 rea…

I'm only 21 but relatively recently I lost this regret and I'm just living life as it comes. Things are going well enough for me and I strive to do better. I know I could've done muuuch better given the right circumstances but i don't care anymore.

Losing these regrets have made me much much happier and I enjoy a lot more of life now.

EDIT: and no, I didn't mix up b and d when i was 5 years old. I was able to read fluently and to write pretty well. Who cares if I wasted my youth on videogames, I'd do it again.

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

#117

Post by CrimsnBlade »

HAL9OOO wrote: post #67
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 rea…

Looking back on your past and feeling regret can be depressing, I too used to look back at all the wasted hours I could have spent being productive (especially when I think about how much I played video games...).

However, I think it's important to be able to look back at everything and find the positives as well. I think you should take pride in where you are and where you come from. This kid has his story, and so too you have your own, just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad, it's just who you are, and that in itself holds a lot of value.

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

#119

Post by mrks_ »

russnewcomer wrote: post #30

I applaud this family, and am glad for Ahaan's sake that he isn't just shipping himself off to college, but is going to still have his support structure. I was homeschooled, along with my two sisters, my entire educational career until college. We all started taking college classes early, my older sister correspondence at 14, my twin and I correspondence at 15. All of us took classes at local colleges before starting…

You have an impressive background! If I may ask, how did (do?) you manage to read 10+ books a week? Was it sheer determination, or were you a fast reader? I know that quantity of books isn't necessarily indicative of any knowledge gained; however, I would love to work through my reading list a little quicker than my current rate.

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

#120

Post by ruraljuror »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #95
jjaredsimpson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He's not implying anything. He's saying it's wrong to assume that everybody should want the same thing. Is it that hard to understand?

I take your point, but would rephrase it slightly differently: everybody should want the same thing: happiness, but not everybody achieves happiness in the same way.

To pick up on the racing comments from above, one should keep in mind Tal Ben-Shahar's warnings about the rat race happiness archetype, where one sacrifices in the present for perceived benefits in the future.

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