Elon Musk's company SpaceX has extended a job offer to a 14-year-old college graduate.
Kairan Quazi, 14, will be the youngest ever graduate from Santa Clara University - with a degree in computer science and engineering - and has already landed an impressive job Elon Musk's spacecraft manufacturing company.
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The precocious teen from the Bay Area realised at school that he was different from other students.
Quazi told the NY Post: “During third grade, it became very obvious to my teachers, my parents, and my pediatrician that mainstream education wasn’t the right path for my accelerated learning ability."
So, he skipped up grades and then went into a college programme, which he has now completed. It may have been a little odd at first being several years younger than all the other students, but he soon became accustomed to it.
Quazi said: “There wasn’t anything to compare it to say oh this is different. But I really enjoyed it - I made a lot of close friends. I think after a few days the novelty of me being there wore off."
He also enjoyed the challenge of something that was at his level, saying: “I went from being a third grade mutineer to really feeling validated intellectually."
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However, some people have reacted with some caution to his meteoric and quick rise. They have worried that he would lose out on experiences that we can only have as children by going into work so young.
One person posted on Instagram: "What's the rush? Besides, IQ's change throughout one's entire life; ebb and flow. His academic achievements are commendable, but put the brakes on.
"He needs to learn how to grow up and have other normal age relevant experiences. [...] He has the rest of his life to be a grown up and missing out on the developmental stages of being a kid-teenager-young adult won't serve him well."
But Quazi is unconvinced by the concerns, saying that if he'd felt that way he wouldn't be where he is now.
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He explained: “I think again that mindset would have me graduating middle school now and I don’t think it makes sense for someone that’s able to take rigorous graduate electives work in a prestigious co-op - I am joining SpaceX as a software engineer."
Kit Roberts