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Tanishq Abraham, a 12-year-old Indo- American child has been selected in two colleges in California. The child already has three community college degrees and has been accepted to UC Davis and received a regents scholarship to UC Santa Cruz, but haven’t decided which University he will attend from among the two.
Studying biomedical engineering and becoming a doctor and medical researcher by the time he turns 18, are some of the plans Tanishq has in mind.
"I think I'll be 18 when I get my MD," he said.
Taishq started going to community college when he was 7 years old. He received an associate's degree last year from American River College, a community college in Sacramento, in general science; math and physical science; and foreign language studies.
He confessed that he got mixed responses from the students. Some students at the college "were intimidated" by him but a lot of others "were really happy" to have a kid in their classes.
Apart from the students, teachers and professors also initially didn't want him in their classes because of his age. But finally a professor agreed to let him attend if his mother, a doctor of veterinary medicine, also took the class. "There were times when I had to explain general relativity and special relativity to my mom," he said.
At age 6, he asked his parents -- father Bijou Abraham, a software engineer and mother Taji who is a veterinary doctor -- to allow him to take a college course. They did not agree about the same but got convinced when they later enquired about him attending a class at American River College.
Abraham's parents originally are from Kerala, later shifted to US.
Tanishq, who joined the IQ society Mensa at only 4 years old, has always picked up knowledge quickly, his father, Bijou Abraham, told NBC News.
"We tested him and discovered that he was pretty smart," he said. "We were surprised when we started giving him advanced stuff and he was picking it up really fast."
But he pointed out he's just an ordinary kid who likes learning and microscopes but also playing video games. "I just think learning is fun," Tanishq said.
