Simons will become the youngest graduate after he breaks a long-held record held by Michael Kearney. He has expressed his desire to move to California.
Laurent Simons will be graduating aged just nine years after completing an electrical engineering degree from the Eindhoven University of Technology in December. He will become the youngest ever person to graduate at a university.
The current record of the youngest person to ever graduate is held by Michael Kearney, who in 1994, graduated from the University of Alabama, aged just ten years old.
Plans after he graduates
Laurent, who is half Belgian and half Dutch, lives in Amsterdam and has expressed his desire to move to California to pursue further education. He said, “I really want to go to California, the weather is nice there.” However, his parents are still open about his next move and have not ruled the student moving to Oxford University for further studies.
US universities have already started lining themselves up to him for the taking. They have begun the process of courting him into joining them.
His father, Alexander, 37, said,
There is definitely competition to get him on the course. If he goes to America then we will go out with him and split our time there with his grandparents, but Oxford and Cambridge are also in the major league and it would be very much more convenient for us.
His parents indicated that it was his grandparents that first noticed his gifts. The boy usually lived with his grandparents as parents went to work. The grandparents noticed about the gifts their grandson possed and notified the parents.
Laurent would then be enrolled in primary aged just four. He completed the year, then was able to complete five years of study in just 12 months.
Aged just six years old, he joined high school and a year later, he was already doing research to fight boredom at an Academic Medical Research in Amsterdam.
This year, he completed his university studies and is waiting to graduate with other students. The university staff indicated that they were amazed by his intelligence and diligence in classwork. He completed university education in just nine months.
Featured image by Unsplash
