And what were the rest of us doing at 10 years old? M

10-year-old college sophomore credits ‘willpower’After two straight-A years of community college, he’s set sights on the stars

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College sophomore, 10, credits ‘hard work’ - TODAY: People - MSNBC.com

By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 11:17 a.m. CT, Wed., June. 4, 2008

Moshe Kai Cavalin likes to tell about the time his father took him to take his college entrance test. The administrators told his dad he couldn’t bring an 8-year-old with him into the test room. His father told them the boy was going in alone — because he was the one taking the test.

“They were smiling ... thought he was telling a joke,” Moshe told TODAY’s Ann Curry Wednesday in New York. But when Moshe’s scores came back, the administrators were suddenly telling his dad something else — that Moshe needed to be taking advanced mathematics.

And so, on a day when other kids his age are in the final week or two of fifth grade, 10-year-old Moshe was visiting New York and off for the summer, having just completed his second year at East Los Angeles College, a community college.

Moshe aced all his courses, in such subjects as statistics, advanced mathematics, foreign languages and music. Now he says he’s hoping for a scholarship to a prestigious four-year college.

To say Moshe is a prodigy is like saying Michelangelo could paint a little. His parents, Shu Chen Chien and Yosef Cavalin, have known that ever since they tried to enroll him in a private elementary school and discovered that the boy knew more than his teachers. So they home-schooled him for two years before realizing he was already beyond elementary and high school level and ready for college.

Willpower and focus

But Moshe likes to say he’s no different than other kids. He plays the piano and soccer and has a roomful of trophies from martial arts. His mother says that when he’s not studying, he goofs off and jumps around like any other 10-year-old.

“But when we put him to study, he is just able to concentrate — focus,” his mother told NBC.

“Willpower and hard work,” is Moshe’s explanation for his success.

“Even though I have a very high IQ, I don’t consider myself genius-smart,” he told Curry. “There’s 6.5 billion people on this earth, and every one is smart in his or her own way.”

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National Debt =

I like this kid (based on his last statement).

I personally hate people being called "prodigies" because of the effect that it has on their personality, it often sets up an elitist and arogant mindframe that will cause their downfall.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides