Sam Amico
Kairan Quazi, 14, has his whole life ahead of him, including four more years as a teenager and seven until he’s old enough to legally have a beer.
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But he’s getting right to work, anyway. And not just at any job. Quazi, who hails from the Bay Area in California, is going to work in Elon Musk’s SpaceX program.
That’s a job that pays well, a position a lot of college grads would kill to land.
Of course, Quazi will be a college grad himself next week. Yes, he’s just 14. Yes, he will be the youngest-ever graduate of Santa Clara University. And he will most definitely be the youngest to ever become a full-time employee at SpaceX.
In most states, he’s not even old enough to work at Dairy Queen.
Kairan Quazi
He’s certainly not old enough to drive or see an R-rated movie. Then again, most 14-year-olds don’t have a degree in computer science and engineering — as Quazi is about to officially earn.
He will work as a software engineer at SpaceX and is due to start next month. So hey, at least he’ll get a few weeks of summer vacation.
But while his classmates will return to school, he’ll be making the big bucks.
This is what’s known as a boy genius. His parents said he was speaking full sentences at the age of 2.
“During third grade, it became very obvious to my teachers, my parents, and my pediatrician that mainstream education wasn’t the right path for my accelerated learning ability,” Quazi said, via ABC7.
Right there alone, he sounds like an adult. Reports suggest he’s not just smart. He is also gifted in the area of emotional intelligence, ABC7 noted.
His college career actually began when he was 9 and he started taking classes at Las Positas Community College in Livermore, California. He transferred to Santa Clara at the age of 11.
“There wasn’t anything to compare it to say oh this is different,” Quazi told the station. “But I really enjoyed it — I made a lot of close friends. I think after a few days the novelty of me being there wore off.”
As for him not getting to be a kid, forget it. Quazi quickly shot down any such notion.
“I think there is a conventional mindset that I’m missing out on childhood, but I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “I think again that mindset would have me graduating middle school now and I don’t think it makes sense for someone that’s able to take rigorous graduate electives work in a prestigious co-op.
“I am joining SpaceX as a software engineer. I don’t think it makes sense I would be trapped or that anyone whose abilities are beyond that to be trapped.”
SpaceX is located in Hawthorne, California and was founded by Musk in 2002. Its goal is to reduce space transportation costs for the colonization of Mars.
