World News – An 11-year-old California boy donned a cap and gown on Wednesday — to receive a college degree.
Tanishq Abraham is the youngest person to graduate from American River College in Sacramento, California, this year, according to NBC affiliate KCRA. And he may be the youngest person to graduate from the school in its 60-year history.
“The assumption is that he’s the all-time youngest,” American River College spokesman Scott Crow told NBC Bay Area on Thursday. “But we don’t have all the archives to completely confirm. He was definitely the youngest this year.”
And yet Abraham told KCRA the milestone wasn’t “much of a big thing for me.”
Abraham, who joined MENSA when he was only four years old, was home-schooled after feeling “bored” in his classes, according to NBC Bay Area.
He graduated high school last June at age 10, after completing California’s early-exit high school exam. He even received a congratulatory message from President Barack Obama and several California officials.
His mother, Taji Abraham, said he has always been ahead of the class.
“Even in kindergarten he was pretty ahead, a few years ahead — and then it just went from there,” she told KCRA.
Tanishq Abraham said some of the students at the college “were intimidated” by him but a lot of others “were really happy” to have a kid in their classes. Abraham graduated with three associate degrees from the college, according to a post on his Twitter profile.
On his college graduation cap, Abraham wore his favorite “Toy Story” quote: “2 Infinity and Beyond.”
As for what comes next for the child prodigy, Abraham said: “I want to become a doctor, but I also want to become a medical researcher, and also the president of the United States.”
— Daniella Silva, NBCNews.com
