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College at 10? A concert violinist at 12? Smart, talented and very, very young, these child prodigies get ready to take on the world
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from People Weekly, October 25, 1999
The Whiz Kids
by Thomas Fields-Meyer
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"I'm getting along with the other students," says Greg Smith.
"I feel like I belong." |
 Greg Smith, 10, is so intelligent that while most of his peers are still doing combat with long division, he's off to college. . . . Last month the 4'6" youngster arrived at Virginia's Randolph-Macon College to begin his freshman year. What's in store for kids like Greg? "I haven't seen much evidence of kids who are truly talented being spoiled by it later," says University of California at Santa Barbara professor emeritus Max Weiss, who has worked with gifted children. "They all find their
 niche." PEOPLE spoke with Greg and some of his peers about the joys and challenges of being so talented so young.
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Little Man on Campus
Like any father watching his son reach a milestone, Bob Smith, a publishing-company manager, was filled with emotion last month when he accompanied his only child, Greg, on his first day at Randolph-Macon in Ashland, Va., 50 miles from the home Greg still shares with his parents. "It's difficult," says Bob, 46, "to watch your child grow up so quickly."
Quickly indeed. Greg was reeling off names of dinosaurs and their respective periods at age 2. At 4, he was adding sums into the quadrillions. In June, two days after his 10th birthday, he graduated from high school on the same day he lost one of his last baby teeth. And now, three afternoons a week, he excitedly recites theorems in Prof. Adrian Rice's Calculus I. "A lot of people say, 'Oh, what do you do for fun?'" says Greg. "Learning is fun to me."
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That has been the case since his early childhood, when he paid unusually close attention to TV. "He didn't have that faraway look that infants have," says Bob. "He seemed to be studying whatever he was doing." After college, Greg hopes to earn doctorates in biomedical research, aeronautical engineering and political science. And then, "I would like to become President of the United States as well as our ambassador to the United Nations," he says matter-of-factly. Says mom Janet, 46, a former model who now takes care of Greg full-time: "I just want him to enjoy himself."
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"The Whiz Kids" by Thomas Fields-Meyer from People, October 25, 1999. Copyright © 1999 by Time, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
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