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Wonder Kids: Pre-Teens Enter Universities in Canada, US


Jeremy Shuler, 12, a freshman at Cornell University, walks to meet an adviser on campus in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 26, 2016. He’s the youngest student on record to attend the Ivy League school.
Jeremy Shuler, 12, a freshman at Cornell University, walks to meet an adviser on campus in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 26, 2016. He’s the youngest student on record to attend the Ivy League school.

Like other 12 year olds, Cendikiawan (Diki) Suryaatmadja is getting ready for a new school year.

But unlike other 12 year olds, Diki will study physics and take additional classes in math, chemistry and economics at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

He is one of a growing number of youngsters enrolling in universities.

"I'm very excited to meet the new students and make new friends," said the pre-teen in an interview with CBC News.

Diki, who is from West Java, a province in Indonesia, will be living with his father in an apartment near the university. The boy taught himself English in about six months by living in Singapore, reading English articles and watching subtitled English movies — especially comedies.

"Little by little, through osmosis, you can learn [a] language," he told CBC.

South of the border, Cornell University in New York also welcomed 12-year-old first-year student Jeremy Shuler this week.

American Michael Kearney, born in 1984, remains the youngest ever to have graduated with a college degree, at age eight. He went on to teach college while still a teenager.

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