11-year-old Laurent Simons has completed a bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Antwerp. He graduated summa cum laude, with an average of about a 9 on his diploma.
Simons only took a year to complete the bachelor’s degree, while it actually takes three years to complete the degree. The Belgian-Dutch boy is now continuing with a master’s degree in physics at the same university. “I have already completed a few courses,” he told ANP news agency today.
The gifted teenager does not yet know how long it will take him to complete the master’s. In the future he wants to work as a scientist. “I want to eventually be able to replace as many parts of the body as possible with counterfeit organs.”
breach of trust
Simons is known as a child prodigy. He started primary school as a two-year-old and entered gymnasium at the age of six. A year and a half later he started studying electrical engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology.
He did not complete that study, because in 2019 there was a breach of trust arose between his parents and the university. Simons was on track to become the youngest university graduate ever, but the university thought it unrealistic to let him graduate before his tenth birthday. The parents of the very young student did not agree with a wider time frame. According to his parents, Simons would also be a victim of ‘bullying behavior’ at the university.
There were then plans to have Simons in Israel or the United States, but eventually he went to the University of Antwerp.
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