At 19, With College Behind Her, Law School Beckons
By Jacques Steinberg

While senior year of high school or freshman year of college can sneak up on students and parents alike, such milestones don’t tend to arrive as quickly as they did on the academic journey of Kate McLaughlin. Her path might best be likened to that of a speeding truck on an interstate highway.

At 19, an age when many of her peers are starting their college careers, Ms. McLaughlin is about to enroll in law school, according to an article in the Orange County Register. Here is how the article, which appeared last Friday, opens:

She skipped six grades, enrolled in community college at age 12 and graduated from UC San Diego at 17.

Only one class in her entire academic career has been challenging, she says – Calculus II, at age 13 – and now she’s headed to Northwestern University this fall for law school.

Life seems good for Kate McLaughlin, who turned 19 last week.

“Schoolwork has always been easy for me,” said McLaughlin, an only child who lives with her mother and stepfather in Irvine. “It was skipping from easy work to more easy work. I’ve never had a feeling of, this is where I belong.”

For those teenagers in a rush to complete their academic careers, the odyssey of Ms. McLaughlin, of Irvine, Calif., might seem like a dream ride. But according to the article:

To say McLaughlin’s life has been easy – or that her parents haven’t struggled to raise a child who was constantly bored with school and couldn’t relate to her peers – would be to dismiss the painstaking, lonely path that McLaughlin has chartered.

She has been burdened all her life with finding a place that would fulfill her insatiable quest for knowledge, a learning environment where she wouldn’t feel like an intellectual oddity.

“I’m incredibly self-conscious about my age,” she said. “It’s funny. When I tell people how old I am, they always make the same comment: ‘Like Doogie Howser?’ ‘Yes, like Doogie Howser.’”

And, because McLaughlin is so smart, her parents have struggled to find a sympathetic ear, someone who understood the challenges they faced nurturing a child who wanted to grow up so fast.

The article raises lots of issues that would be familiar to gifted and talented children, and their families. Can readers of The Choice relate? Let us know what you think by using the comment box below.

A related article was posted today on abalawjournal.com. My thanks to my colleague John Schwartz, who covers legal issues for The Times, for bringing these articles to my attention.

http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/teenlaw/?hp

Imagine if we had more of this type of kids in this country - instead of a glut of the opposite type.

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More Lawyers?

Did someone ever tell her that "Doogie Howser, M.D." was just a tv show?

Speaking of law school . . .

Scott Adams' biggest laugh came when he pulled out one of the many complaint letters he's received to demonstrate his response to a trademark-infringement nastygram.

After using the phrase "ant farm" in a strip, Adams got a series of increasingly heated missives from lawyers for Uncle Milton Industries, which apparently holds a trademark on "ant farms." They wanted an apology and retraction for his generic use of the term.

"It became clear that as long as there's dirt and ants and glass and people who will pay money to see them pressed together, there would be money to pay the lawyer," Adams said.

Resigned to running a correction, Adams published a strip with Dilber asking what phrase, in lieu of "ant farm," should be used for "a habitat for worthless and disgusting little creatures."

Dogbert's answer: "Law school."

I would think one of the problems that such kids could run into later in life is that up until now acheivment has come pretty easy. In the real world that won't be so.

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i worked with a guy that graduated with 2 degrees at 17. A bigger ass I have never met. hopefully this girl will remain grounded

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balamurali_Ambati

Real life Doogie Howser.

Female version of Doogie Howser.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1034371/Britains-youngest-doctor-start-job-aged-22-studying-medicine-years.html

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yeah hopefully the success wont get to her head and make her a complete tool.

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1986 300SDL, 211K,Dealership serviced its whole life
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1983 300D(300k)
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One concern I would have is whether there is matching emotional maturity, particularly when the inevitable happens . . . you're not the best or brightest. This is fairly typical in law schools. Those that manage to "make the grade" have typically always been in the upper percentage of their classes, always been told how bright or smart they are. However, when you combine all those students into one place, for many of them it may possibly be the first time they get a "B" or "C" which can be devastating emotionally.

Truth. I hope her parents have given her opportunity to act her age a little along the way. Curious if N'western was her first choice?

Ah another lawyer to join the crowd!

I'll have my friend who is an undergrad there be on the lookout. Might have her as a TA for some undergrad class!

I knew some kids who skipped a couple of grades and are in college at a young age. Immature kids in an undergrad setting at ANY college is the worst kind of shock treatment

Personally I would never force my child to skip grades. He can take accelerated, but there is nothing worse then being young in a group of old. Age in school is a definite barrier and doesn't disappear until you are in college.

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I was a senior in college doing a work study course at a hospital. We were working on new instruments for monitoring critical cardiac patients ( in 1977). A guy I worked with was 29, had a PHD in Physics, been through med school, and was a resident. He was down to earth, pleasant, interested in other's points of view, and pretty practical. Hope he has saved a bunch of lives by now. Made me re-evaluate my view of success and motivation.

From last night's re-run of "Big Bang Theory"

Looking out at your fresh young faces, I remember when I, too, was deciding my academic future as a lowly graduate student. Of course, I was fourteen. And I had already achieved more than most of you could ever hope to, despite my 9:00 bedtime.

Now, there may be one or two of you in this room who has what it takes to succeed in theoretical physics, although it's more likely that you'll spend your scientific careers teaching fifth graders how to make papier-mâché volcanoes with baking soda lava.

In short, anyone who told you that you would someday be able to make some significant contribution to physics, played a cruel trick on you—a cruel trick indeed. Any questions? ... Of course not. I weep for the future of science

Good analysis on the future of Physics careers.. 8)

I think I've said this before. A good friend has a masters in Physics, then got into IT to make some money. We would do projects around the house like build decks, cut down trees, and fix cars. He hadn't done much of this before. Each time we did something significant you could see the theoretical side of his brain maxed out for a while. He would then announce "time for big science" and we would proceed. Most of the time his analysis was pretty good.

If you broke her heart, she could figure out a way not to leave any evidence.

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