12-Year-Old Child Prodigy Goes to College and Aims to Become NASA Engineer

A 12-year-old child prodigy from Arizona sets her eyes on becoming an engineer in NASA in the next four years after graduating from college.

Alena Wicker, the child prodigy who just finished high school from homeschooling, is set to start attending college at Arizona State University this summer and plans to major in astronomical and planetary science and chemistry.

According to Patch, Wicker's end goal is as a NASA engineer working on planetary rovers. She said in an interview that she gained her passion for science and engineering at a young age while playing Lego.

Wicker's mother, Daphne McQuarter, told 12 News that even as a four-year-old Alena had "a gift for numbers and Lego and science."

If all goes to plan, Wicker would graduate from college at age 16 and will be "driving in one of those future space mobiles."

What Explains Child Prodigies?

BCK Online said that there are five ways to identify a child prodigy. They are exceptionally skilled at a very young age, they have the intense drive to master a skill, they have advanced ability in a specific field, they have a highly functional working memory, and they have a hard time relating to kids their age due to being advanced than their peers.

Psychologists have long debated what explains a prodigy with some saying that anyone can become a prodigy with the right environment.

But recent studies suggest that basic cognitive abilities influenced by genetic factors also significantly play a role in prodigious achievement, according to Scientific American.

Researchers identified superior working memory as one of the common characteristics between prodigies in art, music, and math.

Moreover, developmental psychologist Ellen Winner said that prodigies also exhibit the "rage to master." It is their unusual commitment to their specific area that they could lose the sense of the outside world as they focus intently on work.

Ultimately, psychologists believe that exceptional performance in a field is a combination of both environmental and genetically-influenced traits. As psychologist Jonathan Wai said, "Experts are born, then made."

Child Prodigies Who Went to College

At the age of 12, Wicker is considered a child prodigy but she is not the first one to attend college at such young age.

In 2012, The State Press reported about the 12-year-old Javier Urcuyo who started taking calculus classes at ASU while also taking high school classes.

Also in the same year, 12-year-old Kiavash Garakani enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley as a molecular biology major. The Daily Californian reported that Garakani followed the footsteps of her older sister who graduated from college at age 14.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that Laurent Simons was on track to becoming the world's youngest college graduate at age nine but he left the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands in December 2019 when his parents knew he would not be able to graduate before ten.

As of now, Michael Kearney still holds the title of the youngest person to graduate from college, having obtained his degree in 1994, according to the Washington Post.

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