14-Year-Old Earns Diploma, Making Him the Youngest Recipient Ever of a Bachelor's Degree at TCU

"It's fun because, it's basically just like high school, but in a big campus…with a lot more people,"Carson Huey-You told the Star-Telegram

Photo: Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News/AP

Carson Huey-You received his diploma along with more than 2,000 other students at Texas Christian University on Saturday, but his academic tale was a bit different: At just 14, he became the youngest person ever to receive a bachelor’s degree at the private college.

The young prodigy had enrolled at TCU, located in Fort Worth, when he was just 11, following co-valedictorian honors in high school from the Accommodated Learning Academy in Grapevine at age 10.

Huey-You, who majored in physics and minored in math and Chinese, credited learning as his favorite part 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,” Huey-You said to the Star-Telegram of the best part of his college career, which he concluded with a general chemistry II exam.

Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News/AP

When he was a preteen freshman, he described college campus life as not much different from high school.

“It’s fun because, it’s basically just like high school, but in a big campus…with a lot more people,” Huey-You, who likes to read Lord of the Rings and play checkers and chess, told the Star-Telegram in 2013 at the beginning of his freshman year.

Huey-You said he learned to manage his expectations to challenging tests and coursework.

“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 to Star-Telegram. And now, “I know better how to deal with that disappointment, knowing that I will bounce back.”

On campus, Huey-You said that “for the most part he has blended in with other students,” although when he first arrived, he caused a social media stir. Huey-You’s mother, Claretta Kimp, said students singled him out as the youngest freshman on campus and requested photographs.

“It does still happen,” Kimp said to Star-Telegram. Huey-You insisted to the paper, “I’m a normal dude,” adding that he has friends his age. He also enjoys hanging out with his brother, Cannan, who is attending TCU in the fall with plans to double major in engineering and physics and astronomy.

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His advice for other 14-year-olds is endearingly simple.

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