11-Year-Old Graduates With Degree In Astrophysics

Gotenosente writes "11-Year-Old Moshe Kai Cavalin has graduated from East Los Angeles Community College with a degree in astrophysics. 'At a time when his peers are finishing 6th grade, this only child of a Taiwanese mother and an Israeli father is trying on a cap and gown preparing to graduate with a 4.0 from community college.' The article continues with a quotation by the boy, hinting at his modesty, 'I don't consider myself a genius because there are 6.5 billion people in this world and each one is smart in his or her own way.' Daniel Judge, Cavalin's statistics professor, says, 'Most students think that things should be harder than they are and they put these mental blocks in front of them and they make things harder than they should be. In the case of Moshe, he sees right through the complications.'"

Games Are a "Waste of Time"

[eldavojohn]

From the article

There is one thing this boy wonder does not like.

"I feel it's a waste of time playing video games, I feel its a waste of time and it's not helping humanity in any way."

And GamePolitics' Andrew Eisen [gamepolitics.com] notes:

Perhaps a rather odd statement coming from a lad whose passions include martial arts, scuba diving and playing piano. He also aspires to be a movie actor.

I found that amusing that he finds some form of entertainment to (music & movies) to benefit humanity more so than games. I wonder if he's ever played Settlers of Catan?

Not a genius? He probably is.

[davidwr]

I thought genius was defined as something like an IQ in the 98th percentile or higher.

By the way, most preteens don't have the emotional maturity to succeed in a "normal" college social environment. I'm not saying they can't succeed academically, it's just unlikely they will "fit in" in most college social organizations. We all need to be with our social peers.

Community college is a bit different as there's less of a social environment. On-line school is also a huge opportunity for "non-traditional" students such as those too young to drive or old enough to not be carded.

Re:Games Are a "Waste of Time"

[Bryan Gividen]

While I don't espouse this particular idea (nor do I argue against it), the boy may see a difference between art and entertainment. Generally, video games are classified as popular entertainment that uses technical skills commonly employed in arts, but video games themselves are not considered art. However, movies are commonly considered an art form which also is employed as entertainment.

Like I said, I'm not for or against that idea, but it seems like a logical distinction and could account for his preference.

Re:Two Year Associate's Degree of Liberal Arts

[glueball]

How come there are no genius 11 year olds graduating with a Communications or Journalism degree? How about a Bus Ad or Political Sci degree?

Um, not to rain on his parade...

[DarthVain]

or to take away from an 11yr old's accomplishments...

but is a Community College seriously giving out degrees in astrophysics?

What other certificate course do they have? a 12 month Doctorate in Rocketry Science?

Perhaps a 6 month Masters in Physiology with a special emphasis in Cardiology.

You can even double major in Small Engine Repair, and this week we have specials if you combo with Massage Therapy or Hair Design.

Anyway joking aside I am sure it was a wonderful experience for him, and I would guess the parents have a large role here in motivating him, likely by promoting the idea of education and learning as both desirable and fun. Genius or no, he is probably a smart kid who is likely mature for his years.

Do wunderkinds produce more for society?

[Synn]

It's really impressive to see a child prodigy, but do they go on to achieve more in life than the "average" smart crowd that goes through a more normal progression?

False humility

[Ltap]

How much are you willing to bet that he just said that for the reporters (or was told to say that BY the reporters)? If I were 11, I would be bragging away. Also, 1st comment is right - he rushed through on an easy degree. He should come back when he gets his doctorate - that's the real test. Just as an anecdote - I could have been taking university courses at 15 or 16 (virtually anyone with a grade 9-level education can, since the rest is basically rehashing and enhancing on whatever is already learned), but many universities simply do not allow minors to enroll, whether they have a high school diploma or not. It's likely there was an exception made for him, and he was also likely homeschooled (unless he got his HS diploma by age 9). This is similar to the 9-year-old judge and all 'prodigies'. Many of them, especially ones in objective fields deserve their degrees, but you wonder sometimes about whether connections made more of a difference in trailblazing a path for his future.

Re:Selection unfairness.

[Anonymous Coward]

Utter bullshit. NCLB is a failure but teachers have been required to teach to the "lowest common denominator" for a LONG time. At the very least, since the 1970's. (Wasn't in school before that.) NCLB was, in fact, supposed to fix this problem. While the teacher's unions (though NOT the teachers) worked their darnedest to make sure that any good that could come of NCLB has failed, it did not cause the problem you mention.

You do a disservice to fixing the US education system by blaming a failed solution to an existing problem as the source of the problem.

Re:Blaming the student for being ignorant

[Rycross]

There's usually no one cause for success in anything, whether it be intelligence, business, or whatnot, nor is there one generic cause of failure. Success requires some degree of innate ability, motivation, access to resources, and some blind luck. This kid wouldn't gotten as far as he is if he was not innately intelligent, nor would he have progressed if he was not motivated to nurture that intelligence. If he didn't have a mother who was willing to put him in community college, or a community college nearby, then he wouldn't have gotten that degree. Then there's luck: if he was born in another situation, or had some sort of accident that mentally retarded him, he would not have succeeded.

Beware of people who like to generalize other peoples' failures into some simple reason. The world is complicated. Trying to get simple answers out of a complicated problem will leave you with a half-assed solution.

Re:Two Year Associate's Degree of Liberal Arts

[vindimy]

I have attended ELAC and I could tell you that those courses are quite challenging and there's a LOT covered in each one of them. In addition, I believe that any physics-related majors are required to take ALL or MOST of the math courses available, which incidentally is the same requirements as for a Comp Sci Bachelors degree at UCLA. Maths include calculus 1-3, differential eqs, linear algebra, and discrete math. The 3rd physics (Optics and Waves) also includes a section on relativity, albeit not that big.
ELAC is known as one of the campuses where instructors are more strict and standards are a bit higher. For an 11-yr-old kid to breeze through all these advanced maths and physics classes is truly a big accomplishment.

Living example

[pigwiggle]

of public school failure. I have a BS in both chemistry and mathematics, minored in physics. Have a PhD in Physical Chemistry ,Theory. A successful career in research. I almost didn't graduate high school- failed most of my math, failed physics and chemistry. Ended with less than a 2.0 in my core classes, and had to petitioned to graduate. It's hard for me to say exactly why. That was 20 years ago, and my memory is a bit foggy. Luckily, my state university admitted me based on promising entrance exam scores. Mom and Dad didn't go to college, so they weren't really in a good position to line me out for it. I wasn't invited to my high school's prep sessions for the college entrance exams. I think they assumed I wouldn't be interested. I have always been into science type stuff. I read Einstein's primer on special relativity in high school. Loved pop science stuff - Brief History of Time, anything by Sagan, and so forth. Somehow none of my high school teachers were able to capitalize on it. Maybe it was because they didn't have much going on, themselves. I remember my high school physics teacher commenting that he went into education because he couldn't quite make the general physics curriculum. This was in the context of explaining just how hard quantum mechanics was, and that nobody really understood it. Well, I understand it, and use it frequently. It's fun for me to think about because it's so weird. It would have been nice if the special, advanced classes I had in grade school had a counterpart in my high school. Wonder where I would be now.

Re:Two Year Associate's Degree of Liberal Arts

[immcintosh]

Didn't your mother ever teach you never to pass on an opportunity to alliterate?

Re:Not a genius? He probably is.

[iamhigh]

MENSA requires an IQ in the top 2%. I am a member, and trust me, that does not make a genius. A true "genius" would probably be in the Triple Nine club (99.9 percentile). But many people in either of these, are as regular as you and I, as dumb as your neighbor that never picks up his garbage cans, or as crazy as the cat lady down the street. Intelligence has pretty much zero affect on a person's successes or happiness. In fact I made a chart about it. I make a lot of charts. [wordpress.com]

Re:Two Year Associate's Degree of Liberal Arts

[Eil]

but he's still been brainwashed into thinking that he's not unusual. What a shame. And how typical.

Don't confused learned mediocrity with modesty. We have a society (and a Slashdot comments section) literally full of people who think that they're better than everyone else, so it's encouraging to see an 11-year-old who knows better despite his intellectual gifts.

Re:Do wunderkinds produce more for society?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Malcom Gladwell in "Outliers," an IQ above 135 is not necessary to attain the greatest intellectual achievements, such as Nobel prizes. Put differently, the IQ vs achievement curve flattens at 135. A higher IQ certainly makes you smarter, but does not make you more likely to achieve or discover great things.

Re:Two Year Associate's Degree of Liberal Arts

[Achromatic1978]

I can tell you that I hated high school. I loved it when I was offered, and took the opportunity, to skip two years (I did one term in 9th grade, and finished the year in the 11th, going on into the 12th, somewhat akin to finishing your freshman year as a junior).

I hated school. I loved the chance to finish it early.

But once I got past all that, I realized that I'd lost a huge part of social development. To everyone in my former year level, I was 'the nerd who got promoted', and to the people in my new year level, I was 'that kid'.

Sure, he's a smart kid, a very smart kid. But there is more to it than that.

I was programming grading and other applications on my elementary school's Apple 2e when I was 10... there's just more to school than learning. And more options within school. Although, admittedly, you might need to look further afield than just the local options.

Re:Two Year Associate's Degree of Liberal Arts

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

You forget that apparently most or all prisons or mental institutions in comic books are apparently built out of papier mache and bubble gum ... and they were all out of bubble gum. In the DC universe, as an example, breakouts are a weekly occurrence at Arkham Asylum. So the superhero's not going to go through a dozen evil geniuses annually, they'll go through the same evil genius every month for a year.

Being a supervillain is actually not that bad a gig, depending on the superheroes who would be your opponents. For instance, if you're a member of one of Batman's, Superman's, or the Flash's rogues galleries, the worst that can happen to you from one of the superheroes is that they'll beat the crap out of you and leave you for the authorities. How many people have those superheroes actually killed, ever? Possibly loads and loads of chumps (aka red shirts) that nobody cares about, but how many supervillains have they killed? What's even better is that if your fight with them leads to your super-secret lair being destroyed, by their code of "honor" they're almost obligated to save you! Now Wonder Woman's rogues have a reason to be concerned ... although she had good reason for what happened between her and Maxwell Lord.

Re:Selection unfairness.

[sckeener]

we allow people to repeat grade levels and university subjects. So why not go the other way and allow above average students, or students with above average dedication to finish faster.

agreed. Every time that was offered to me in grade school, I advanced much faster working at my own pace rather than that of the slowest average person in my class.

I'm not good at English, but I'm great at math. The school system didn't realize that about me until they went to a method to teach math for 4th and 5th grade students to work at their own pace. I zoomed and suddenly other options in education opened up (my zooming opened up all the advanced courses then...)

In my 6th grade social studies class, they posted the entire years assignments at the beginning of the year. I finished it by November. I was left doing special projects for the teacher for the rest of the year or studying on my own (which I preferred.) Though I learned a lot on my own during that extra time, I think it could have been better spent, but they didn't have anything in place for students like me who excelled in certain topics (math and history - which probably describes why I loved D&D which has losts of math and history)

Re:Two Year Associate's Degree of Liberal Arts

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a fair point, however you have to realize that the media was already taking a statement from him. Would you respect an 11-year-old graduate whose only reply was "Booya!"? No, you'd probably wonder who he--or his parents--paid off.

What are the ways he could come off? Keeping in mind that the media will take a one-sentence soundbyte at best no matter what he says?
* Sincerely modest
* Insincerely modest
* Trying hard to sound modest when he isn't
* Trying hard to sound competent when he isn't
* Trying hard not to sound like he did something wrong (cheating) even though he did
* Momma's boy / Daddy's boy
* Offhandedly arrogant
* Deliberately arrogant
* Overwhelmingly disdainful

Now, alright, that's a partial list and I know it, but if I took someone with genuine ability and wanted to bring them up, I wouldn't want them thinking that anything below "Insincerely modest" was acceptable.

And even setting that aside, what would you want his box-quote to be? "I think I set myself above the others because they were out being children like they were supposed to while I was working myself to the bone in a way that sets myself apart from them so far that I may never have a social life again. But on the plus side, every time I mention to this glorious achievement to anyone ever again, they'll all think I'm an arrogant prick!"?

All paths lead to solitude

[GameboyRMH]

Telling people how much smarter you are than them is a good way to ensure you spend Friday night in the basement playing video games.

If he's that much smarter than the Average Joe (IMO he definitely is), he'll probably find that he's totally alien to most people and end up gaming alone in the basement in his spare time anyways, although he may want some of the benefits he can gain by putting up a facade of interest as he gets older...