One of the traits of some Aspies is a very high intellect. Some are even given the title of child prodigy. I read an article this morning that troubles me.
Laurent Simons was studying electrical engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology, located in the Netherlands. He is of Belgian and Dutch descent, has an IQ of 145. His favorite area of study was math "because it's so vast, there's statistics, geometry, algebra." He is a 9-year-old Belgian prodigy. He was scheduled to graduate with an electrical engineering degree before the age of ten. He was reportedly supposed to complete his three-year degree within 10 months, so that he could graduate before his birthday on Dec. 26 and become the first person to graduate college under the age of 10.
But now the University has backtracked and refuses to let him graduate within that timeframe. They claim there were too many exams he needed to take and that it was not practical for a 9-year-old boy to develop "insight, creativity and critical analysis" in such a short time frame.
Apparently the reason why the school is backtracking as the media was "told that with the media attention we put too much pressure on our child, and that if we continued, a psychiatric examination would have to be made."
Source: Belgian prodigy, 9, withdraws from college because they won't let him graduate before he turns 10
There are two points in this story that bother me.
* The first is that the university lied to the family. They reneged on an agreement. Goals are an important part of life. If Laurent Simons developed a goal to graduate before the age of 10, I do not support the authority of the University to pull the rug right out from under him.
* The second was the universities explanation. Since when does a university demand a psychiatric examination as a prerequisite for obtaining a degree. He may be an outlier on a bell shaped graduation curve but that is not grounds for requiring a psychiatric exam. What about the other end of the bell shaped curve. Will they require those that do not graduate within the normal 4 or 5 year timeframe to undergo psychiatric exams?
11 Dec 2019, 12:01 pm
discrimination 
