UFC Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey vowed not to be a “do nothing” you-know-what, but even she is slacking compared to one California teen with two college degrees and who works at NASA.
17-year-old Moshe Kai Cavalin graduated from community college at age 11 before earning a bachelor’s degree in math from UCLA at age 15, Associated Press reports. He’s not even old enough to vote or drive a car by himself but he works with NASA to develop surveillance technology for airplanes and drones and carpools with his older colleagues. You might say he’s extraordinary but don’t tell him that.
"My case isn't that special. It's just a combination of parenting and motivation and inspiration," he said. "I tend to not compare myself that often to other people. I just try to do the best I can." That includes working on a master’s in cybersecurity at Brandeis University, publishing his second book and planning to get an airplane pilot’s license by the year’s end. After Brandeis, Cavalin will further his education with a master’s in business at MIT.
"I think most people just think he's a genius, they believe it just comes naturally," Daniel Judge, a professor of mathematics who taught Cavalin at East Los Angeles College. "He actually worked harder than, I think, any other student I've ever had." And the hardworking teen would agree about the genius bit. He says referring to him as such is “just kind of taking it too far.”
Genius aside, he's just a not so regular teen looking forward to getting a California driver's license when he turns 18.
