Laurent Simons, a nine-year-old boy from Belgian who was on his way to become the world’s youngest university graduate decided to drop out of the Dutch university of Eindhoven following a dispute over his possible graduation date.
He made headlines last month, as he was going to complete a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Eindhoven’s University of Technology before the end of the year.
If everything had gone according to plan, he would have become the the world’s first ever graduate under the age of 10. But, now he has become the youngest one to drop out of college.
The university told Laurent that the plan didn’t seem feasible considering the number of exams he still needed to complete before his 10th birthday on 26th December.
It was after a dispute between the university and his parents that Laurent decided to drop out of college. In an Instagram post he described the institution as ‘liars’ and ‘pathetic’.
The post included an email to the university examination committee where he accused the university of changing the date he was supposed to finish after he protested about a failed oral exam.
The original plan looked unachievable to the university so they offered “a still phenomenally quick scheme in which he would end his education mid-2020” which was later rejected by Laurent and his parents.
In a statement the university said:
Laurent is an exceptionally gifted boy, who is going through his studies at an unprecedented pace.
Apparently, the exact date of his graduation was never really an issue but Laurent and his family felt the university was reacting to their plans to move the boy’s further education abroad.
Alexander Simons, Laurent’s father told Reuters,
Until last week everything was fine, and now suddenly they see a delay of six months.
In the future, the 9-year-old genius wants to research artificial organs so that he can ultimately develop an entire artificial body in his own laboratory.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, currently the youngest person to obtain a college degree is Michael Kearney, an American who achieved the feat in June 1994 at the age of 10 years four months.