Meet the 9-year-old boy genius and Mensa inductee working on his college degree
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At 9-years-old Tanishq Abraham is already working on earning his college degree, was inducted into genius society Mensa at the age of 4, and scores in the 99.9 percentile on a standardized intelligence test.
The youngest student to be accepted at American River College in Sacramento, California at the age of 8, Tanishq spends his days among students more than twice his age - whom he also occasionally lectures.
'I like particle physics and contemplating the fate of the universe,' the boy genius recently told the Digital Journal.
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Precocious being an obvious description for him – while his acute intelligence was first recognized by his mother at the age of 2-1/2 - Tanishq keeps his parents busy trying to keep up. His father, Bijou Abraham, is a software engineer, and his mother Dr. Taji Abraham, a doctor of veterinary medicine.
'A typical comment is that we are really pushing him,' his father laughed to Fox40. 'He's pushing us,' he insists.
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'People think we want all these things, but it's his passion. This is what he loves,' his mother added.
Able to count to 100 at the age of 2, and having to skip the first grade when fully capable of performing 4th and 5th grade mathematics instead, Tanishq's life could be seen as a challenge for him to fit in.
'Our challenge is to keep him stimulated, not bored and to advance. We don't want him to stagnate,' his father told News 10.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- At age of 2, Tanishq could count from 1-100
- At age of 4-1/2 he scored in the 99.9 percentile on the standardized intelligence test and inducted into Mensa
- Skipped first grade to perform 4th and 5th grade math
- Admitted to American River College at age of 8 - youngest student ever at school
- Occasionally gives guest lectures to college classmates
- Performs in the San Francisco Boys Chorus
- Sang the National Anthem at the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's games
- Sister Tiara, 6, is in MENSA too scoring in the 98.8 percentile
‘I'm not very good because kids and people are kind of rude to me,’ Tanishq, which means Jewel in Sanskrit, told the Sacramento Bee of his previous school with children his own age.
‘They are testing me to see whether I'm smart,’ he said of their teasing and constant questions and challenges.
Thanks to his college enrolment today he instead gives class presentations and occasionally guest lectures on subjects like palaeontology, astronomy and one of his favourites, dinosaurs. His mother sometimes even joins in on his classes though she says some of the lectures come easier to her son.
'He’s a real asset,' Geology Professor Stephen Sterling at ARC told the American River Current. 'He’s the top student. The students love him and look up to him because they respect him [as they would] a peer.'
'It was intimidating at first,' 23-year-old ARC student Alison Gaube told the Sacramento Bee.
She shared an Astronomy course with him which had the boy frequently shooting his arm up when asked questions like what is Newton's second law of motion.
'But we treat him like any other student,' Ms Gaube said.
'...I had to go with my sister, Tiara on a class field trip. It was at a science museum for kids age 2-8 as thats what it says in their site,' Tanishq wrote earlier this year in an online bloghe started keeping.
'All they do is play! Well it was okay, nothing interesting for me, was bored after playing for sometime.'
Championing that day he wrote was a copy of an IEEE Spectrum magazine - a magazine self-described as meeting an audience of 'technology professionals and senior executives worldwide in the high technology sectors of industry, government, and academia.'
'I like them a lot. especially their "hands-on" section,' he wrote.
While perhaps writing his boredom with his little sister's friend's, Tiara too is in Mensa (which means 'table' in Latin).
At the age of six, she was inducted after scoring in the 98.8 percentile.
Sitting in front of a piano, her tiny feet just barely scraping the floor, the girl elegantly taps down on the keys, one of many talents she shares with her brother.
Balancing his academia, Tanishq performs in the San Francisco Boys Chorus, in gymnastics, soccer, piano and even sang the National Anthem at the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's games.
'We are going to learn Amazing Grace in Cherokee version and Morning Song, another Cherokee song,' he wrote of his singing class.
'...after that me and my family had dinner and [then] time for bed (the worst part in the day for me ) ...the end!'
Asked what he thinks he may want to do when he’s a bit older, he ponders and then shoots out his answer:
‘I really want to be a scientist or a president. President of the United States,’ he told the Digital Journal.
‘I’ll make the United States more healthy for us and more efficient,’ he reasons of his highly plausible platform, come the required 35-year-age minimum or 26 years to go.
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