The 14 year old college graduate

Houston Chronicle:

David Levy was worried his classmates would stare when he walked into his first class at San Jacinto College three years ago.

They didn't, even when his feet didn't quite reach the floor after he sat at a desk.

At 11, David was the youngest student to enroll at the community college. Now 14, he will graduate next month with an associate degree in mathematics.

He already is studying mechanical engineering at the University of Houston, where he is a junior.

Younger students have become more common on community college campuses with the growth of programs offering both high school and college credit. The Guinness Book of Records lists Michael Kearney as the world's youngest college graduate; he graduated from the University of South Alabama in 1994 at the age of 10.

Even so, David Levy has been something special on the San Jacinto College south campus, where he attends classes.

"The thing that is scary is the speed at which he learns stuff," said Jim Meeks, chairman of the computer science and information technology department. "It's exciting."

But David, a tall, slim teen with braces and stylish glasses, shrugs off the accomplishment.

"I'm a hard worker," he said. "It's not like I'm anything special. If anyone has the same determination, they could do it, too."

...

His father, Bob Levy, an engineer who works on the space station, said he began teaching David to read at 3 1/2 . By age 4, he was reading Hamlet.

He worked math problems instead of watching TV.

When his mother, Susan Levy, began taking classes at San Jacinto College after her only child started elementary school, David was fascinated by her math homework.

"I asked her to teach me and then it got over her head, so she asked Dad to do it," he said.

By then, David, who skipped both kindergarten and fifth grade, was taking the most advanced classes offered at Clear Lake Christian School.

Finally, he exhausted the curriculum there. Susan Levy approached Pam Campbell, one of her former professors.

...

"He was very curious. He was very driven," Campbell said. "He'd taken our trigonometry textbook and taught it to himself."

He plays basketball and hangs out with friends from his family's church, Evangelical Formosa Church in Clear Lake. He saw Twilight on its opening weekend. He recently changed the oil in his mom's car, and he loves to ski.

"It's not going to be all textbooks," Bob Levy said.

Susan Levy has spent the past three years driving David to class, first at the San Jacinto College campus and now to the UH central campus, as well.

But she long ago stopped ducking into the classroom to see how he was doing.

Now, students don't give David a second look as he walks across campus, and he says most don't know how old he is. He's part of the Gaming Guild at San Jacinto College's south campus, where students program and develop video games, as well as play them.

Ultimately, he hopes to attend graduate school and work in the space program, like his dad.

He's pretty quiet in class.

"For the first two semesters, I didn't speak up in class," he said. "I'm just a quiet kind of guy."

His teachers say he's quick to give older students a hand with challenging problems. But his mother notes that he's not so hot at picking up his room.

"He's just like a normal teenager," she said.

His mother is of Chinese heritages. I suspect he will get his shot at working at the Space Center.

For many years clear Lake High School lead the country in the number of merit scholars since many of the kids' parents worked at NASA. David clearly is a step beyond those talents. When we consider al the problems we ahve in education stories like David's are an inspiration.