11-year-old genius with degree aims for NASA
Are you smarter than a fifthgrader? Probably not this one. Well, technically, William Maillis is a fifth-grader in age only. He’s 11. But he graduated Saturday from St. Petersburg College with an associate in arts degree.
“I am totally fascinated by William and the work he has done,” St. Pete College President Tonjua Williams told Bay News 9. “He’s extremely brilliant, very open and collaborative.”
I got an AA degree when I was 19. The college president was not fascinated by me.
But then, I wasn’t speaking in complete sentences when I was 7 months old and solving math equations at 2. William was, and by 3, he knew the alphabet in three languages. He was doing algebra at 4.
At 5, he went to Ohio State. Not to study, but to be studied.
Joanne Ruthsatz, a former Ohio State psychologist who worked with William, declared him a genius, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
She said children like him are 1 in 10 million.
“I’m gifted in what I’m gifted in,” William said, “and other people are gifted in other things.”
Yeah, but most people’s gifts don’t help them graduate from high school when they’re 9. In his graduation speech, William discussed French philosopher René Descartes and recited a Bible verse in Greek.
William’s father, Peter Maillis, is a Greek Orthodox priest. The family moved from Ohio to Palm Harbor last year, and William took a couple of courses at University of South Florida last fall.
He would have taken more, but he didn’t qualify for the federal student financial aid program. He was too young.
“You would think, a kid like this, they would be throwing money at him,” his father told the Times.
They probably will before long. William plans to enroll at USF for the fall semester and get his bachelor’s degree. Then he wants to get a master’s degree and eventually work for NASA.
“I want to be an astrophysicist,” he said. “I want to prove to the world that God does exist through science.”
That’s quite an ambition. But if anyone can do it, it might be this 11-year-old.