
Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15 - badboyboyce
http://news.mit.edu/2015/ahaan-rungta-mit-opencourseware-mitx-1116
======
russnewcomer
I applaud this family, and am glad for Ahaan's sake that he isn't just
shipping himself off to college, but is going to still have his support
structure.

I was homeschooled, along with my two sisters, my entire educational career
until college. We all started taking college classes early, my older sister
correspondence at 14, my twin and I correspondence at 15. All of us took
classes at local colleges before starting 'real college'. All of us scored
high on our ACTs, all of us got scholarships to college.

My parents didn't really push us, we were just smart. We had childhoods, I was
a starter on the basketball team, and played college soccer for a year. I also
read 10+ books a week, played way, way too much Civilization and Total
Annihilation, and did plenty of volunteer work, especially at our local public
access station.

For my sisters, going to and living at 'real college' worked out well, they
both succeeded in their own ways (my older sister graduated with two masters a
few days after she turned 21, my twin sister received a lot of recognition
from professionals in her field before graduating, was salutatorian, etc),
whereas I didn't do so well being away from home and the support structure.
I'm lazy, and I thought could just not do assignments I didn't want to and do
well enough on other assignments to make up for it. Long story short, my GPA
dropped enough to lose my scholarship, and I decided that the private college
experience wasn't worth borrowing tens of thousands of dollars for.

So I moved home, finished my bachelors from the state university in town.
Snagged an internship and then got a job offer from that company, essentially
during my junior year for a full time job, contingent on finishing school.

My point in typing up this story is not to say that I am or was awesome. My
point is that I am pretty sure that Ahaan Rungta is a pretty smart kid, his
parents probably pushed him less than you think, and that as long as he and
his family figure out how to navigate the maturity journey, he'll be fine.

~~~
rtl49
>My point in typing up this story is not to say that I am or was awesome.

Are you sure? Being a smart fellow, you must know that your experience is not
evidence that this young man was not "pushed" too much and that he will "be
fine."

That said, my suspicion is that Rungta's early achievement is not cause for
concern about his social development. Conducting research, for instance, is an
intensely collaborative experience that he will probably have, and would
provide ample opportunity for interacting with people of many ages. He
probably will be fine.

~~~
russnewcomer
> Are you sure?

Well, of course, all of us deal with pride and so part of my motivation to
type up the story is that I'm proud of what I've accomplished, yeah.

> Being a smart fellow, you must know that your experience is not evidence
> that this young man was not "pushed" too much and that he will "be fine."

Of course my experience is not evidence of someone else's experience. However,
I have experience being homeschooled, and entering college early, so I think I
have a degree of ability to relate to Ahaan Rungta's situation that others in
this thread do not. I think my contribution to the thread is to provide a
counter-point to those who were decrying his parents for pushing him too hard,
or depriving him of a childhood, which can only be provided by personal
experience.

Additionally, I think my story demonstrates the variability of how children,
within the same family, respond to environmental and parental stimuli. My
sisters were fine starting school early, I wasn't so much, and if I would have
lived at home during my first year of college, instead of in a dorm four hours
away, it would have been different.

~~~
rtl49
I won't speculate on your motives, I'd just like to point out that the story
you've related simply doesn't provide a counterpoint to the idea that rapid
academic advancement might lead to developmental problems or result from undue
pressure. All of the accomplishments you cite could be expected of a
precocious student, and could go hand in hand with adjustment issues (and seem
to have done so in your case as a college student).

I'm not claiming that the subject of this article should be expected to have
such problems (see my other comments), only that your story doesn't serve its
stated purpose.

~~~
russnewcomer
Hm. I feel that I've written poorly, because I don't understand why you're
making your argument from my writing. I feel like you're just restating my
argument without the personal experience.

My point in writing was entirely to say that I've been through a similar
journey, as have others in my family, and (while I didn't mention this
originally), I have friends who have done the same thing. Thus, I have
observed this situation from several different perspectives.

Based on what little evidence I have from this article, Ahaan Rungta's family
is taking the course of action that has the best probability of a positive
outcome. However, as my own story and that of my family illustrates, some kids
will do fine and others won't, coming out of essentially the same
circumstances.

Will Ahaan Rungta be fine? Depends on what you mean by fine. I mean that he's
likely to graduate from school no more messed up than any other college
student, and that his family seems to have positioned themselves to do that
the best.

~~~
rtl49
To whatever extent your comment was intended to contribute to the discussion,
I apologize for any misunderstanding. To whatever extent it might have been
motivated by pride, I wish you luck, for your sake and those around you, in
overcoming this tendency. Beyond that, I think this conversation is now of too
little value for us and those reading to continue.

------
chris_va
I went to college early (14, graduated 18). I've spoken with a lot of similar
folks over the years, and the biggest takeaway for me was that everyone's
experience and needs were different.

Some people were pushed by their parents, but mostly it was people who were
bored with the normal experience and found an out. Out of that set, maybe
about half regret it, and wished they had slowed down and enjoyed high
school/childhood more.

People tend to assume that folks who go to college early would be socially
awkward, but that was not my experience. The social/emotional intelligence
distribution was pretty normal.

Out of everything, the common denominator was supportive parents.

~~~
wahsd
What do you mean by "supportive parents"? I think that eludes some. You can be
supportive without really being helpful. Can anyone provide some context as to
what that support looked like?

~~~
chris_va
Yes, that is tough to define. "Enabling" might be a better way of phrasing it.

I wasn't a completely functioning adult at that age, in a lot of ways. I did
not know college was an option, I just complained to my folks that I was bored
(like any bored kid). They really helped find things to keep me occupied, and
eventually found the college option for me.

In addition, the typical stuff you might expect was also important. For
example, paying for college would have been very difficult for me (getting a
job at 14 would have been too much on top of everything else). Getting to/from
campus was also difficult, and I was too young to live on campus or drive. I
also had to deal with all of the normal teenager BS (hormones, depression,
etc), in addition to going to college, and they helped (as I expect most good
parents do).

Sorry if that doesn't answer your question, the circumstances varied a lot
depending on the individual.

------
JoeAltmaier
Children can do a lot more than they're given credit for. My 4-year-old
demanded music lessons when his older brother was playing cello. He started on
both cello and piano.

Entering kindergarden, in music class the teacher had a keyboard, asked the
children who could play. A little girl banged out chopsticks. Another little
boy picked out twinkle,twinkle,little star. My son Andrew raised his hand, and
played some Beethoven sonata. The teacher asked him if he knew what that was.
He told her.

He's not a prodigy. Has terrible handwriting! The 1st-grade evaluation
suggested he had fine-motor issues. Yet he could play 64th-note runs on the
piano endlessly. Its all because of regular teaching and fun practicing.

Kids can learn what they put their minds to. But it takes 10,000 hours not
only from the pupil but from the tutor. My wife put in the time; Andrew plays
wonderfully.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Fun fact: terrible handwriting is correlated with high dopamine levels in the
brain, which is correlated with increased brain activity (~ intelligence).

~~~
Omnipresent
Any link for additional reading on that fun fact?

------
eddotman
I've hung out with Ahaan at school several times -- some people in the
comments here are speculating that going to university this young might make
it hard to adjust (socially), but honestly I assumed he was like ~20 (i.e.
just like any other college-age dude). I had no clue he had such a neat
backstory of how he got to MIT!

~~~
erroneousfunk
Yeah, there was a guy at my alma mater (Olin College of Engineering) who
entered at 14 or 15. He was perfectly normal and well-adjusted. I mean, it was
a weird cloistered tech school environment, so "normal" and "well-adjusted"
are relative here, but I also didn't realize he was so young until he
mentioned it.

I mean, sure, you get the occasional Ted Kaczynski, but the vast majority of
kids I've heard of entering college early seem well-adjusted.

~~~
linuxkerneldev
> you get the occasional Ted Kaczynski

Occasional? Ted was one of a kind. And apparently, you don't "get" someone
like him. Allegedly, rather, you "make" that kind of person through government
sponsored psychological torture experiments.
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-
and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/)

~~~
erroneousfunk
Yes, I was being a little glib when I said that.

That's, unfortunately, who a lot of people automatically jump to when they
think of "maladjusted precocious children/young adults" I think there was a
RadioLab episode about him as well?

------
bitL
I consider 4 years of my highschool a complete waste of time and would have
loved to jump straight into a university right after elementary school. It
would have been great to have OCW available at that time and not having to do
everything myself including finding relevant books/sources.

Good for Ahaan he escaped it and I wish him the very best of luck @ MIT!

~~~
eljimmy
Out of curiousity, why did you find it such a waste?

~~~
legohead
I felt the same as bitL. I was in PEAK (gifted and talented) since the second
grade. When I started High School, one of my freshmen classes was biology. We
started the year off learning about cells -- something I had learned about in
3rd grade PEAK and still remembered clearly. I was actually pissed off that I
was not being taught something new. From that point on, I didn't give two
shits about high school. I scraped by with Cs and played computer games until
I graduated.

I did start college a little early my senior year, using a program that let me
take half the day off to attend college. But I could have easily been going to
college since 9th grade.

As for the social stuff, I actually lost most of my friends in HS -- they all
moved to other states, and I had no desire to gain new friends (I had good
friends on the internet, that I still have to this day, ~20 years later).

------
dagw
It would be interested to check in with him at 35 to see where he ended up
compared to other 'normal' 35 year old MIT grads. Basically does pushing your
kid like that from such and early age lead to any significant long term
advantages.

~~~
jasode
_> pushing your kid like that_

I dunno about this... we're not intimate with his family so it seems a little
unfair to characterize his parents as "pushing him". For all we know, the
opposite may have happened and his parents were "holding him back" and trying
to prevent a precocious teen from rushing into MIT at age 14 instead of 15.

As far as the article's text reveals, it says his parents were responsive and
not pushy: _" Rungta is grateful to his parents and to MIT for being
responsive to his needs every step of the way."_

~~~
evook
Yeah for sure... I attended a school for gifted kids. Those who where a lot
younger than the rest of us where always pushed by their parents and their
parents always told they where not pushing.

And that is a first hand experience watching 42 gifted smart young children
pushed in our education system and over their interessents on behalf of their
parents. I attended this school for 6 years.

It was a pain, and as if school wasn't boring enough ( school is mandatory
where I live ) you had to consider every word you wanted to say as a 16/17/18
year old when there where 9/10/11 year old depressed and ADHDish, but
extremely smart kids around you the whole time.

In the end I am a hundred percent sure every kid can study MIT classes at
every age. Most of the stuff is rational trivia. Also beeing gifted has
nothing to do with your grades or your ability to follow classes or lectures.
Because that's something your parents could've pushed on you, but for sure you
are allowed to be happy that they didn't.

~~~
chrisBob
>school is mandatory where I live

Do you mind if I ask where you live? In most of the US school is "mandatory",
but pretty much anyone can homeschool if they want.

~~~
cwbrandsma
There are a lot of state-by-state laws around homeschooling. Basically, some
states make it easier than others as far as what rules apply. Some parents
have to have their curriculum approved by a state board, others have mandatory
checkins, and some have no requirements at all.

------
peter303
MIT has always had a few of these "show pony" geniuses around. Two of them
sadly committed suicide during my years at MIT. I dont know their minds, but I
guess some of their sense of self worth was being a smart ass and marching to
to a different drummer. When you are surrounded by thousands almost as smart
as you you dont really stand out for being you anymore. MIT people are
impresses by you doing something really clever. Also I suspect these guys were
very lonely too. I hope Adaan has a sense of self worth built on more than
being at MIT.

------
erebus_rex
Some commenters are afraid this kid was pushed way too hard and did not have
time to learn proper social skills, play sports, get a holistic education in
the humanities.

This all might be true but the article makes it very clear how precocious this
kid is. I don't think his parents were trying to push him. If anything they
seemed to struggle to get him the things that he needed to succeed.

Some people are just so laser focused on their desires that you just have to
let them do their thing. I'm sure if he wants to play sports or learn history,
he'll excel at it too.

~~~
papapra
"I'm sure if he wants to play sports or learn history, he'll excel at it too."
I'm not so sure about that, maybe it depends how you see excel

------
allendoerfer
As long as he did not exclusively learn technical stuff but also got a
humanistic education, which we do not know, and enjoyed his childhood, which I
think he did, because you cannot perform like that without enjoying it, I
think this is pretty amazing parenting.

You could find other reasons to nitpick (Did he do sports? Did he develop
social competences by interacting with other kids?), but even if these things
are true, which we do not know, there are children, who got a regular
education, that are still lacking in these regards and they are not enrolled
at MIT at 15.

~~~
sannee
You have to realize the fact that humans have some really annoying bugs.

a) The first one is the fact that we want (mostly) to help each other and make
each other happy. This looks benign, but combined with b) can be really
irritating

b) Humans are bad at empathy. You might enjoy humanistic education or sports
and so you automatically think that everyone else does too.

This probably worked fine for our ancestors (getting torn apart by a cave lion
is something no-one would like) but kind of breaks in modern society.

Different people like different things, keep that in mind.

~~~
allendoerfer
I think a bit different about humanism. I think a basic humanistic education
is more like a drivers license for society. Know nothing about WW2? Well, you
should not be allowed to vote, because it could turn out really bad for all of
us. Democracy can be really dangerous without proper education.

What does all technical excellence mean as long as the Middle East is a
clusterfuck? Most really big problems have little to do with technology.

~~~
codingdave
Are you truly proposing a limit on voting rights based on educational
achievements? I think that is a road that will lead to an elite class in our
society, limiting political power to those who grew up in poverty or had other
struggles.

We already have enough problems with an elite class within our economic power.
Lets not extend that elitism into governmental processes as well.

~~~
allendoerfer
I did not. I just wanted to say, that we should try to educate children,
because they will be allowed to vote as adults.

~~~
codingdave
Thank you for clarifying. I must have been thrown off by your exact words of,
"Well, you should not be allowed to vote"

------
Mimu
So many people praising this brainwashing I can't even believe it. I'm ready
for the downvote but please comment to why it is not the case. That's a pretty
story but if their parents went on teaching him something else than physics
everybody would go on their horses and scream for child abuse.

What choice did the kid have? None. Dude didn't go out and was full MIT mode
from the age of 5.

------
umutisik
It is better for the kids to praised about what they are doing rather than
what they are getting. Personally, I don't care what prestigious thing he got.
This kid is amazing for having studied so many things on his own.

The real aim here should be to be engaged and to be learning; which are things
this kid seems to be have done plenty of. It is so cool that we now have all
these learning resources accessible easily.

It's interesting how this kind of thing makes one think about their own life.
I went to a talk by a computer scientist yesterday. He is studying
cryptography. You could tell that he was so engaged, getting so much joy from
his subject. People were interested in what he was explaining. You could tell
that he is just loving every minute of his job. This is the kind of engagement
level I am looking for. And by the way, I don't think one needs to be top-
level at what they do to get there.

------
sawthat
Don't know this kid, or this situation, but to commenters here who seem
envious, or young people who are inspired: being a child prodigy expires at
age 25. Being known for your youth means that once you aren't young anymore
you've lost that. If your identity is wrapped up in being precocious be ready
with a second plan.

~~~
stared
I don't know how many miss "being known". I think many regret not having so
much intellectual stimulation, or opportunities to learn. (Seriously, how many
of us, the HN crowd, considered their Primary School intellectually
challenging?)

------
sakri
"When Rungta turned 12, his family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, as his
parents realized he needed to be in a more intellectually stimulating
environment."

My friends in Fort Lauderdale are gonna LOVE this!

~~~
michael_h
Ft. Lauderdale has intellectually stimulating aspects, just not of the highly
technical variety. The arts scene, however...

------
stared
I envy this guy so much! I felt delayed by school, which offered slow-paced,
and uninspiring environment (learning interesting stuff on my own, after the
lessons; at ~15 I started reading academic textbooks in physics and
chemistry).

Right now I am very much for adjusting education to students, rather than the
other way around (without expecting that everyone gets magically enlightened
at the age of 18-19). Especially as the cohort-based learning is a direct
heritage of the Prussian education (for teaching soldiers, not - scientists or
engineers).

------
littletimmy
I don't know man, I think there's something to be said about having a
childhood. Being from India myself, I know the tremendous pressure parents put
on kids to succeed. I hope that this kid wasn't subject to the same.

~~~
Spearchucker
Agree with you. My wife and I are already arguing over the future of our
3-year-old. She wants him to learn to read and write. I want him to play, have
time to be a boy, get in trouble, kiss a girl, and have a care-free childhood.

We're so obsessed with money, and forget all about the one currency that
_really_ matters. Time. Time to _live_.

I'd rather he were average academically, and experience life exceptionally.

~~~
jazzyk
Up-voted for courageously (and beautifully) expressing a potentially unpopular
opinion. Stay strong - it is hard not to feel guilty when other kids in
kindergarten can seemingly write essays and do calculus, but in the end, it
does not matter as much as it may appear to. And sometimes putting so much
pressure may have unintended consequences. I know a few kids from affluent
families in my town where their "early prodigies" are now college drop-outs.

~~~
thearn4
Many early achievers burn out once they enter an environment where they are no
longer the smartest person in the room all of the time.

~~~
contingencies
I don't know, I think "burn out" is a somewhat loaded term. Personally during
either secondary and (much later) tertiary education I simply found it hard to
maintain interest in a dubiously presented, dry, fixed syllabus that was
executed at the speed of the slowest person in the room by teachers with
thousand-mile lecture stares. It was always clear to me that learning
something by rote was not an effective use of time... the initial
comprehension and applications were the only interesting portions. Thus, I
turned to self-directed computing. When I finally went to college, I received
a scholarship in the first semester, took a year overseas, then never
returned. I'd like to study more, but feel the pedagogy is too alien to
deliver solid results (in terms of time efficiency) versus competing life
opportunities.

------
rtl49
_“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7,
looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t
believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that
moment.”_

I think this impressive achievement is more a testament to the role that
aspirations acquired during childhood play in determining a person's success
than it is a reflection of this young man's intelligence. Yes, the latter is
necessary, but it isn't sufficient. I have little doubt that there are many 18
year olds entering MIT's class of 2019 who could have entered at 15 had they
been provided a similarly advantageous upbringing.

These stories attract the attention of some of us because we wish we had been
raised similarly. Had we not devoted our attention as children to, say, petty
family turmoil or a hedonistic preoccupation with computer games, perhaps we
would have progressed through life with a singularity of purpose and self-
confidence that would have situated us in a better position today. We might
have been spared years in our teens and twenties trying to find a sense of
meaning in our work, unlike this fellow, who seems to have it figured out.

I won't speculate about his social skills. I've met college students his age
running the gamut from borderline autistic to social butterfly. Yes, the sense
of "peerlessness" must be a bit alienating, but many of us have had this
experience without leapfrogging high school.

~~~
agentultra
> These stories attract the attention of some of us because we wish we had
> been raised similarly.

We wish we had been but we didn't live in the right time or place for an
upbringing like this. I remember stealing my dad's college textbooks on
mechanics and applied mathematics and sneaking them off to school; taking out
Byte and Compute issues from the library when they were available... just
starving for more all the time. Astronomy club. Chess club. In high school I
went to night school with my friends' mom at the university in the big city
when I wasn't working to help pay the rent. You just couldn't get the breadth
and ease of access to information you can today. It was slow and laborious
back then.

But a world like this? Today? Amazing. You don't even have to leave your
house. He is lucky. I'm 33 now and I'd kill to be able to study mathematics
full time and be a professor some day. It just wasn't in the cards. Parents,
circumstances, life and all of that.

Yes... we'll envy stories like this. More of us could have been this hungry.
We just couldn't get there.

~~~
lettergram
Hell Im 23, and even with easy access to information its difficult if you have
to work full-time to pay the bills. Ive been working full-time since I was 15,
and no matter how many courses I completed or books I read, without
financially stable parents there is no way a normal person can do this. Thats
why most of us attend public school.

I have full confidence most people are capable, but they would need some
exceptionally staunch parents and finacial stability. Plus a lot of drive to
accomplish these goals (it is not for everyone).

~~~
OJFord

        > Thats why most of us attend public school.
    

This has to be the single most confusing AmE/BrE difference..

~~~
chris_wot
In case people don't know what is being referred to here, it's that in Britain
a _Public School_ is something you pay for, and in America (and Australia!) a
Public School is funded by the government and not the individual.

------
mkj
"two-year-old son — already an avid reader" sounds somewhat unusual?

~~~
NameNickHN
There are people who have a hard time learning to read and some who never
manage it despite making every effort. Why is it so hard to believe that there
are people at the other end of the spectrum who are able to learn to read as
an infant?

~~~
nibnib
This isn't normally distributed. Would you find someone learning to feed at 18
as surprising as someone learning at a week old? Reading at this age is
certainly unusual.

~~~
NameNickHN
Normal? No, but neither surprising.

------
cognivore
What I like is he came to America to go to MIT. That great mind is now an
American mind, and with his family origin, I would hope a world thinking and
sympathetic mind. Perhaps he can do good in this world.

------
ausjke
The school system is really best for the kids-in-the-middle, i.e. not the best
fit for the really talented, as the case with this MIT kid here, neither is it
for the D/F students. Public school was originated in Europe for training
workers if memory serves me right.

Since Bush the public education system is more geared towards to the D/F
students nonetheless, i.e., the no child left behind policy, a road to hell.
This might have something to do with Bush, who is about a D student himself.

A solution I would like to see, is tax-relief for home-schooling families,
they don't use the public education system so why pay for the school district
property tax? This looks like a win-win for the family and the nation in the
long run.

Human races compete and evolve, focusing on the left-behinders are so against
nature, yes they should be taken care of, but the focus really should be on
the other side.

~~~
allendoerfer
> Public school was originated in Europe for training workers if memory serves
> me right.

Actually, no. The idea is associated with Martin Luther, the Protestant
Reformation, the Enlightment and stuff like this. This was years before
workers had to be educated. It was actually about humanism and liberty from
the catholic church.

------
PaulHoule
This seems to have been drawn from the same statistical distribution of many
stories that center around this idea that "MIT students are smarter than
students anywhere." The ideology of MIT is that you should go to MIT daycare,
then MIT kindergarten and all the way through to the PhD and beyond, and if
they had enough people in that pipeline they wouldn't bother taking
applications from anywhere else.

That idea is definitely one of the things holding Boston back in terms of
startups -- you definitely see research labs at MIT that don't hire postdocs
from Stanford or Cornell because they only want to hire MIT people. There are
plenty of MIT grads who are mediocre at best but many local startups
(particularly those started by MIT grads) don't realize this and often make up
all sorts of excuses about why things went wrong.

~~~
ultrafilter
In contrast (but not contradiction) with your experience, as an MIT
undergraduate math major applying for PhD programs, my advisor warned me that
the math dept. doesn't admit their own graduates. I applied anyway and indeed
was not admitted (which was fine since I was admitted to UW-Madison, where I
most wanted to go).

------
CrimsnBlade
>Some people think I’m gifted, but I don’t think so

Taking physics and chemistry classes at 5 years old? Call me crazy, but I
think that can certainly be considered gifted by most standards.

~~~
oberstein
Just another instance of dunning-kruger. When he's older and had more
interactions with lower IQ people, he may come to terms with his gifts...

------
ucaetano
And then people wonder why there's a teenager suicide epidemic in Palo Alto
and Silicon Valley in general...

~~~
jnwrd
The problem is mostly that parents and teachers have expectations for students
beyond what most of them are intellectually capable of. There is also an
excessive emphasis on empty credentialism. Both problems could be tempered via
a recognition that people are not blank slates, some people like Ahaan are
simply smarter than others, and the average high schooler should not be
compared against him.

------
huac
Their restaurant (Cafe Spice @ MIT) is pretty good!

~~~
linuxkerneldev
That was the first question I was curious about. Secondly, which dish is their
specialty...

------
smanzer
I did my bachelor's from ages 14-18; there's some things that you can't really
do (frat parties) but most of the social opportunities are open to you. It
helps to make friends if you are in a group-centric major - I was a chemist,
so lots of long hours in the lab with cool people. There's been some questions
about whether the parents push too hard in these sorts of cases; for me, I was
definitely motivated more by my own desire to get out in the world and start
getting real things done. This isn't always a productive desire - I wish I'd
taken the time to learn more about the stuff that grew to interest me later
(math/CS), instead of blitzing through all my chem requirements. I guess for
other people doing the same thing the only advice I'd have is that while the
cliche is that life is short, it's really longer than you think it is at that
age and you shouldn't feel like you need to rush in order to maintain a
position in some sort of race. It's not bad to progress fast, just make sure
it isn't at the expense of finding what you really love to do.

------
iconjack
I'd be willing to bet that Rungta watched and consumed with great joy Walter
Lewin's Physics 8.01 videos. I'd further bet that he mentioned them in this
interview with MIT News, only to have his comments omitted from the piece,
because Lewin is, in MIT's eyes, _persona non grata_. Of course this is just
conjecture. I just said I'd be willing to take the bet.

------
venuzr
I find his drive and his parent's support commendable. Being someone who has
not been homeschooled and does not know anyone who has, I am extremely curious
about it.

-How does one go about replicating this kind of success? Or even moderate success. In typical schools, you have some measure of whether your child is "succeeding". How does one go about doing the same for home-schooled children.

-How do you go about providing the structure that schools provides towards increasingly complex material which will keep the child engaged and learning at the same time.

Not having children myself but watching my brother's children, I can see that
the structure provided for children is extremely important, even for simple
things like when to have food, go to bed, practice music etc.

Are there any good resources for raising home schooled children and providing
structure?

~~~
stuxnet79
Extremely important in what sense? What are the specific benefits you see to
having a rigid structure? I have a little sister who is in my estimation
smart, but spends every waking moment (when not in school or finishing up
homework) on her iPad playing video games and watching Youtube videos. I
sometimes wonder if a little bit of prodding on the part of my parents would
help her find other hobbies.

I personally feel like I suffered from my parent's laissez faire attitude.

------
esaym
I plan on doing something like this for my kids as they get older. I already
randomly watch open courseware type stuff offered from various universities
and I've always noticed they have decent seeming English and Math sections
too. So why not sit my kids in front of it too?

I don't think anyone is really happy with public schools these days. I object
because of a Christian background. Yet my non-church going (atheist?) in-laws
asked me once about "non-religious" based home school programs for their kids
since they knew I would be home schooling. I really had no idea what to tell
them.

------
sireat
Even with all the positive support from parents this kid is an extreme
outlier.

Terrence Tao supposedly knew numbers from Sesame Street at age 2, but I do not
know of any avid kid readers at age 2.

I know plenty of kids ages 3-4 who know the alphabet but none are actual
readers.

In fact I know plenty of kids who "read" a book at age 3, but they are not
reading the way we adults are they are imitating the reading process.

Anecdotally I was a relatively early reader at age 5 (reading whole scary
Grimm's tales) but my mom keeps insisting it was age 3 when I know it was not.

So if he really was reading at age 2 and half that is showing advanced
potential.

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ChuckMcM
I think this was a great story and I hope to hear more like it. It has been
one of the "promises" of the Internet that smart children could get access to
as much learning as they can handle, breaking the bottleneck that was the
availability of local resources.

Of course not everyone cares, or wants to learn all they can, but for those
who do it is important to give them that opportunity. And it is in that
context that I think the availability of course ware will help us guide smart,
motivated, kids before their boredom leads them into an ill advised adventure.

------
sotojuan
This is awesome. As someone who can't wait to graduate college so I can teach
myself stuff through OCW (there's some irony there), I am glad it's available.
It's a really great project.

------
droopybuns
I would love some guidance on how to take advantage of OCW w/ my kids.

I don't want to reproduce Ahaan's story. My father was a biology teacher and
always had tons of text books we could just kind of grind through growing up.
I'm not doing the same for my kids at this time- mostly for lack of resources.

Just skimming through the OCM content- I don't see material in physics or
science that can be used to introduce kids to the scientific method. It mostly
looks like baptism by fire.

Any tips?

~~~
eddotman
If OCW is too advanced to start, try Khan Academy first. It's great for K-12
material.

------
wuschel
Truly impressive accomplishment. My congratulations.

And now imagine that you actually _do not need_ MIT. In comparison to what you
have done, it is another rigid institution with a more or less rigid
structure.

I hope the educational landscape will keep changing, giving more alternative
bodies to aquire high end knowledge, e.g. through hacker spaces,
virtual/internet based platforms, etc.

------
ktzar
Some people force maturing, when maturing comes on its own... And by doing so
they loose childhood, which never comes back.

~~~
NameNickHN
Some people mature earlier than others without being foced.

For some the ideal childhood is playing outside, playng games or playing
sports. For others it's technology and science.

~~~
sklogic
Exactly. Tinkering with things is not any different from any other games
children play.

------
biggio
<blockquote>"elementary and secondary education from
OpenCourseWare"</blockquote>

How do you do that?

------
jonesb6
The main argument for why this ok seems to be:

"Children are able to learn more, therefore any obsessively accelerated
curriculum is justified even if it detracts from other aspects of child hood"

Um, I think that's just an excuse for not learning as an adult and pushing
your own failed dreams on your offspring.

------
wodenokoto
I just don't understand how a 5 year old can comprehend a college level
course.

How does he know enough math to follow along any scientific course? How can he
be well enough versed in literature to follow along a liberal arts course, or
history to comprehend a sociology course?

~~~
drcode
Well, the first-level answer would be "work backwards"...

...as soon as you don't understand the math, google it, then keep doing that
until you start understanding things (though this is probably more what a 7yo
would do, not a 5yo)

------
jnwrd
He seems to have tremendous breadth of curiosity, it will be interesting to
see what he ultimately ends up specializing in. MIT is a big place, and trying
to "major in everything" will almost certainly not turn out well.

------
gokhan
If you're skeptical about pushing children towards their limits, here's
another take by Derek Sivers:

[https://sivers.org/kimo](https://sivers.org/kimo)

------
benlower
Sees the world in buckyballs. Never played with an actual ball.

------
NDizzle
His parents are amazing. If he's like most 15 year olds he won't realize that,
but when he will it'll be quite a moment.

That took a lot of courage. Props.

------
hemantv
On a side note, I am very curious how family immigrate to US. From what I know
there is no good path as Indian to immigrate legally.

Green card has 6 - 12 years of wait.

~~~
rchaud
I have 3 friends from Bangladesh whose parents received their US green cards
in 2000, 2002 and 2003. They had all applied for them in the early 1990s. I
rarely hear of this happening anymore, so I imagine the process was more
straightforward back then.

------
sopooneo
To me, this exemplifies the true potential of online education: not to lift
the masses, but to enable the geniuses.

~~~
thewarrior
Well Ramanujan only needed one textbook to enable him. The tru e potential is
in allowing everyone to get atleast a momentary ,fleeting glimpse of the
worlds that the geniuses have opened up for us.

------
free2rhyme214
I wonder what he does after school. Impressive accomplishment! That's a lot of
focus for a kid.

------
samstave
I'd love to see a list of the order in which each class was provided to the
child.

------
biggio
How do you get "elementary and secondary education from OpenCourseWare"?

------
klogw
I remember him from Brilliant.org, saw him solving problems there.

------
n7c3c1
_reads article about unbelievably driven and hard working young person_

 _watches video of American students at Yale yelling about safe spaces_

o_o

