A metro Atlanta 12-year-old who has already been accepted to Georgia Tech plans to study aerospace engineering.
Take a moment to ponder your own life choices. Then meet Caleb Anderson. Caleb is currently dual-enrolled in high school and classes at Chattahoochee Tech. He could enroll at Georgia Tech as early as next fall.
When Channel 2 Anchor Jovita Moore talked to Caleb, he was just finishing up a little light schoolwork: creating a PowerPoint about Siberia and reading up on World War II history.
Caleb told Moore he has big plans for after college.
“I think I am going to go to Mars, and do more school, I think, and try to get my master’s at Georgia Tech,” Caleb said. “Then do an internship with Elon Musk, and then I’ll probably get my PhD at MIT. And then I think I’ll start working at either NASA. Or SpaceX.”
Caleb’s mother, Claire Anderson, told Moore that Caleb was just a baby when she started to notice that something was different.
“At three weeks old, I did notice that Caleb was trying to mimic some of my words... By four months, he was picking up basic signs.”
Caleb’s father, Kobi Anderson, said his son has always been different.
“He’s kind of always been this way, where you’ll ask these very deep, profound questions, and you don’t expect to see that from a three-year-old,” Kobi Anderson said. “That’s kind of been our road, our journey.”
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
A family video on their YouTube page shows Caleb pointing out countries when he could barely talk.
Caleb certainly doesn’t have a big head about his abilities.
“It’s my life, as it’s normal for me,” Caleb said. “So yeah, I do recognize that I’m a little bit different.
Entertainer Steve Harvey has announced he will pay for Caleb’s college tuition.
Caleb had some great advice for other kids.
“If you want to succeed, you have to do two things. Number one, you have to learn to fail,” Caleb said. “That’s a really big part of winning, too.... And the second part is, you always try... If somebody says, ‘You can’t do that,’ that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]