TCU’s youngest grad (14) ever: I’m normal

Carson HueyYou isn’t old enough to drive or vote and isn’t comfortable dating, but at 14, he already has a real-world understanding of what can be achieved through hard work.

On Saturday, Huey-You walked across the stage inside Schollmaier Arena and became the youngest person ever to receive a bachelor’s degree at Texas Christian University.

Huey-You accepts the spotlight with a grin and a shrug. At age 11, he attracted widespread media attention when he entered TCU’s 2013 freshman class, and the story of his graduation was no different.

Magnus Rittby, senior associate dean for administration and graduate programs at TCU’s College of Science and Engineering and Huey-You’s academic adviser, said people are fascinated by stories of young prodigies completing college.

“Doogie Howser is all I have to say,” Rittby said, referring to the popular early 1990s TV show about a teen doctor. “It’s part of the American myth.”

Rittby said modern-day luminaries such as Bill Nye the Science Guy and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have popularized the image of science nerds.

“They are always scientists — science nerds,” Rittby said. “They are building. They have lasers and shooting things.”

Huey-You ends his undergraduate chapter with a physics degree — chosen because he likes learning how things work and interact — and minors in math and Chinese.

Huey-You’s favorite thing about college?

“Getting to learn new things about things you never thought about, things that you never knew existed, things that you might not even think about thinking about,” he said.

His advice to other 14-yearolds?

“Try to stay focused on what you are doing,” Huey-You said. “Even if it seems really, really challenging and hard to get through, stay with it.”

When Huey-You started at TCU, he told people classes were easy, but as is the case with many college students, his perspective soon changed.

“I’ve had to deal with some really hard classes,” said HueyYou, who said his three hardest classes were American environmental history, general chemistry II and classical mechanics.

“That one hurt,” Huey-You muttered with a grin, referring to the last one, an advanced physics course.

Huey-You said he sees how he has changed over the past 3½ years.

“When I used to get bad test scores or something like that, I would go home and be disappointed and think about, ‘Oh, I should have known this; I should have done way better,’ ” he said.

Now, he said, “I know better how to deal with that disappointment, knowing that I will bounce back.”

People have called him a genius — or worse “a celebrity,” he said, adding: “It is just something I have learned to deal with because, to me, I am not a genius. I am a normal 14-year-old person doing college-level stuff.”

Huey-You likes to read “Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia.” He plays chess and checkers and has long been a fan of “Minecraft,” a building and adventure video game.

“I’m a normal dude,” he said.