ATLANTA (NewsNation Now) — A 12-year-old Georgia boy is making history after being admitted to Georgia Tech.
Caleb Anderson has dreams of studying aerospace engineering and other planets.
It was not hard for Kobi and Claire Anderson to discover their firstborn son was different. The bubbly baby boy was babbling and trying to speak at just 3 weeks.
“He would mimic whatever people were trying to say. You can tell that he wanted to speak,” said Claire Anderson.
So his mother tried a new approach.
“I would teach children to read, as they were learning to talk,” said Claire.
At just 6-months-old, Caleb showed his mom he got the message.
“He was kind of like reading back. I was like ‘I was right,'” exclaimed Claire.
At just one year old, his reading improved and so did his math skills. At 2 he was mastering sign language and fractions. The Andersons say when all other parents focused on material things, they placed education and morals at the top of the list.
“I remember people almost making fun of us because of that fact that we didn’t have television in our home or we gave our kids books for birthdays and Christmas,” said Claire.
“My wife says this very frequently. It’s about, are we helping them to have good strong character and values. Because those types of things, those are not innate,” said Kobi Anderson.
Caleb’s on the verge of completing his first two years of college at Chattahoochee Technical College. Now at 12, Caleb applied to Georgia Tech as a sophomore. And he got in.
“It’s one of my dreams. So yeah, I am really excited to go there! They have an amazing aerospace engineering program,” said Caleb.
The university has a world-renowned program for science.
After getting his bachelor’s degree, he says he wants to get his master’s from Georgia Tech, get an internship with Elon Musk and then eventually his PhD from MIT.
His dreams are literally out of this world.
“You know we focus a lot on the earth. But there are natural resources. There are differences in gravity, differences in physics that you know are on other plants. I think it’s interesting to learn about it,” said Caleb. “Do I feel like I’m [breaking barriers], no not necessarily. I honestly just feel like I am doing what I want to do. But do I know that I am doing it? Yes. I know that people are inspired by me. People look up to me,” said Caleb.
He says since he was 1, he had a passion for learning.
“I think when we see something. You know all three of us. We have to finish it. When we have interest in something, we can’t just leave it. We have to see things through the end,” said Caleb.
His family hopes his story could be an inspiration to others no matter what gift or difference they have.