A few months after 12-year-old Laurent Simons from Ostend obtained his master’s degree in physics, he is starting a PhD at the prestigious Max Planck Institute.
Laurent Simons’ course of study looks impressive. At the age of six, his primary school was over, three years later – at the age of nine – he started his university studies and in July, at the age of twelve, he obtained his master’s degree in physics at the University of Antwerp.
Now a new chapter is starting. Simons will start his PhD at the prestigious Max Planck Institute. He had also done an internship there at the Attoworld research group in Munich, where he researched lasers detecting cancer in people’s blood with world-renowned professors. ‘And he likes being there,’ says father Alexander Simons. ‘So he stays there.’
What the son’s PhD will be about, the father prefers to keep to himself for now. ‘It will be a combination of chemistry, medicine and physics and he will be in labs day in and day out.’ He says Laurent does not like to limit himself to one field of research. ‘And he will get the time he needs to bring it to fruition. He can immerse himself in those three fields during that period, which is wonderful.’
This always makes me really sad. I hope that the kid does truly enjoy this. But even if he does, I’m sad he’s missing out on a lot of life. There’s a lot to learn from having friendships in school and the more carefree time of being young. Education is really important obviously, but I really hope it’s the kid wanting to do this and not the parents or anyone else pushing him to do it.
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A few months after 12-year-old Laurent Simons from Ostend obtained his master’s degree in physics, he is starting a PhD at the prestigious Max Planck Institute.
Laurent Simons’ course of study looks impressive. At the age of six, his primary school was over, three years later – at the age of nine – he started his university studies and in July, at the age of twelve, he obtained his master’s degree in physics at the University of Antwerp.
Now a new chapter is starting. Simons will start his PhD at the prestigious Max Planck Institute. He had also done an internship there at the Attoworld research group in Munich, where he researched lasers detecting cancer in people’s blood with world-renowned professors. ‘And he likes being there,’ says father Alexander Simons. ‘So he stays there.’
What the son’s PhD will be about, the father prefers to keep to himself for now. ‘It will be a combination of chemistry, medicine and physics and he will be in labs day in and day out.’ He says Laurent does not like to limit himself to one field of research. ‘And he will get the time he needs to bring it to fruition. He can immerse himself in those three fields during that period, which is wonderful.’
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
This always makes me really sad. I hope that the kid does truly enjoy this. But even if he does, I’m sad he’s missing out on a lot of life. There’s a lot to learn from having friendships in school and the more carefree time of being young. Education is really important obviously, but I really hope it’s the kid wanting to do this and not the parents or anyone else pushing him to do it.