Meet 9-yr-old Indian American Mensa boy who's working on college degree
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A nine-year-old Indian American boy is already working on earning his college degree.
Tanishq Abraham was inducted into genius society Mensa at the age of 4, and scored in the 99.9 percentile on a standardized intelligence test.
The youngest student to be accepted at American River College in Sacramento, California at the age of 8, Abraham spends his days among students more than twice his age - whom he also occasionally lectures.
"I like particle physics and contemplating the fate of the universe," the Daily Mail quoted him as telling the Digital Journal.
Precocious being an obvious description for him - while his acute intelligence was first recognized by his mother at the age of 2-1/2 - Abraham keeps his parents busy trying to keep up.
His father, Bijou, is a software engineer, and his mother Dr. Taji Abraham, a doctor of veterinary medicine.
"A typical comment is that we are really pushing him," his father laughed to Fox40. 'He's pushing us,' he insists.People think we want all these things, but it's his passion. This is what he loves," his mother added.
Able to count to 100 at the age of 2, and having to skip the first grade when fully capable of performing 4th and 5th grade mathematics instead, Abraham's life could be seen as a challenge for him to fit in.
"Our challenge is to keep him stimulated, not bored and to advance. We don't want him to stagnate," his father told News 10.
"I'm not very good because kids and people are kind of rude to me," Tanishq, which means Jewel in Sanskrit, told the Sacramento Bee of his previous school with children his own age.
"They are testing me to see whether I'm smart," he said of their teasing and constant questions and challenges.
Thanks to his college enrolment today he instead gives class presentations and occasionally guest lectures on subjects like palaeontology, astronomy and one of his favourites, dinosaurs.
His mother sometimes even joins in on his classes though she says some of the lectures come easier to her son.
"He's a real asset," Geology Professor Stephen Sterling at ARC told the American River Current.
"He's the top student. The students love him and look up to him because they respect him [as they would] a peer," he said.
His little sister Tiara, too is in MENSA. At the age of six, she was inducted after scoring in the 98.8 percentile.
Sitting in front of a piano, her tiny feet just barely scraping the floor, the girl elegantly taps down on the keys, one of many talents she shares with her brother.
Balancing his academia, Abraham performs in the San Francisco Boys Chorus, in gymnastics, soccer, piano and even sang the National Anthem at the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's games.
When asked what he thinks he may want to do when he's a bit older, he ponders and then shoots out his answer.
"I really want to be a scientist or a president. President of the United States," he said.
"I'll make the United States more healthy for us and more efficient," he added.
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