Black excellence has no age limit, even the youngest of all are setting out to achieve academic excellence.
Physics student Carson Huey-You is history in the making at 17-year-old, as the youngest to receive both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Texas Christian University, Face 2 Face Africa reports.
Huey-You has always been a young genius with a passion for STEM, studying algebra at the tender age of 5.
“I’ve known since I was young that I wanted to do physics,” he told Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “It started when I was watching ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ when I was home-schooled. There was never any question about it, no going back and forth with things like ‘I want to be a doctor’ to ‘I want to be a physicist,’ to ‘I want to be a firefighter.’”
Despite being the youngest in his classes, rarely anyone ever gave Huey-You trouble about his age.
“Everyone has always treated me as a peer,” he said to the news outlet. “There have, of course, been outliers here and there, but for the most part, I’ve just been treated as another student.”
The then 10-year-old homeschooled student scored a nearly-perfect 1,770 on his SAT exams and left high school early to study physics at TCU. There, in addition to physics, he embarked on his studies in math and Chinese.
“For me, I like physics and science in general because you get to understand the how and why of just a number of different subjects,” he said in regards to his interest in science, according to Face 2 Face Africa. “So really, just kind of digging into that rabbit hole and figuring out what’s going on behind equations or systems or whatever it is you’re trying to solve.”
Huey-You concluded his undergraduate studies at TCU earning a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at the age of 14.
The young scholar then proceeded to return to his alma mater to pursue his master’s in the same subject.
Upon receiving his degree in December of last year, Huey-You expressed that he hopes to either get his doctorate in quantum physics and work as a researcher, either with a university or in a private sector. He also stated if he were to work at a university, he’d like to teach.
The young teen’s accomplishments arrive at a time when diversity and representation in STEM are needed most. Huey-You set a standard that most students can only hope to reach.