Courtesy of Michelle Tanner
Elliott Tanner
What is the biggest challenge about attending the University of Minnesota as a 13-year old? According to Michelle Tanner, the mother of UMN student Elliott Tanner, it’s making it from East Bank to West Bank between classes. “That's a lot for little legs with a 15 minute passing period.”
Elliott made history as the youngest college graduate in the state of Minnesota when he received his Associate of Science degree in mathematics from Normandale Community College at the age of 9 (with a 4.0 GPA, if you were wondering). From there he enrolled in the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering, where he will graduate with a Bachelors of Science in physics and minor in mathematics this May.
While many 13 year olds are just learning the fundamentals of algebra and physics, Elliott has already finished classes like Quantum Mechanics, Electrodynamics and Waves, and Cryptology and Number Theory. While many young teenagers are preparing to enter high school, Elliott is about to start his PhD program in high energy theoretical physics. For him, it’s the logical next step.
“I definitely feel like a normal kid,” Elliott says. “I suppose the only difference is I'm just going to a different school.”
The Building Blocks of Learning
Ever since Elliott was in preschool, he showed a hunger for knowledge. His parents enrolled him in a Spanish immersion program during kindergarten where he quickly grasped the material. At that point, his interests were already veering towards math and physics and away from the typical kindergarten curriculum. His parents decided to homeschool him full time so he could work at his own pace.
Since Elliott’s an only child, this was their norm. It wasn’t until Michelle started posting Elliott’s achievements and received comments from other parents on Facebook that she realized he might not be like other kids his age.
“You never think your kid is much different until people start telling you, and that's when we realized—oh, yeah, maybe he is different,” she says. After researching giftedness, the family went on to have him evaluated and had their hunch confirmed. “He’s a smart cookie, so he's gonna have a different kind of lifestyle and a different track of learning.”
Where will this track lead? “I'm hoping to become a professor so that way I can spread all this joy for physics and knowledge around,” Elliot says. “Physics, in particular, is math with intuition, it's more interesting, it's able to sort of simulate what's happening in the physical real world.”
A higher plane of learning
Elliott will begin his PhD in high energy theoretical physics after his graduation this spring. To dig a little deeper into the subject matter, the University of Minnesota describes the field as such: “High Energy Theorists focus on understanding the fundamental forces of nature and cosmology.”
One of the uses for high energy physics is muon tomography, which can be used to view things inside of crevices or cavities, Elliot says.
“Recently, one of the applications was looking inside of some of the tombs and Egyptian pyramids using muon tomography,” he said. “There are these heavy particles called muons that have high piercing capabilities, so we're able to see how much they scatter in order to sort of make a three dimensional image of stuff we can't see—it's like X-rays, but better.”
Students in this program usually spend an average of five years earning their PhD. Only 3% of incoming PhD students in the country don’t receive a tuition waiver or financial package, which Elliott has fallen into. The family set up a GoFundMe in order to raise enough funding so he can complete his PhD. In less than a month after it was organized, over $30,000 was raised.
Even though there’s been a lot of public support for his endeavors, his family is aware that not everyone shares the same optimism.
“We feel like a lot of the general public just thinks that his childhood was robbed from him,” Michelle says. “If you knew Elliott, you knew that's not the case. He gets to have his academic needs met and his mind stimulated.”
Rather than pushing him into physics, Michelle and her husband Patrik say they feel like Elliott’s pulling them along, and they’re happy to follow wherever he wants to go. “If he doesn't want to pursue this route any longer at some point, that's totally cool,” Michelle says. “If he wants to change course, do something different, explore something different—his dad and I are completely supportive of whatever he wants to do.”
Boy Genius
It hasn’t been all quarks and leptons for Elliott, however. In the summer of 2019, he met Iain Armitage who plays Sheldon Cooper, a young genius who excels in math and science, on Young Sheldon. Armitage’s mom reached out to Michelle saying, “Oh, wow, you know, my son plays your son, if you’re ever in L.A. come out and see us!” On a trip to visit family in California, Elliott was able to visit the set and meet Armitage, leading to an ongoing friendship.
While young Sheldon Cooper has issues fitting in with his peers, that hasn’t been the case for Elliott. Ever since he bounced into Normandale as a 9-year-old, he’s been welcomed with open arms. He’s made friends everywhere from his neighborhood to his college classes, saying meeting one of his friends was one of his best memories of his undergrad career. In his free time, he sees friends, plays Dungeons and Dragons, and takes advantage of his Valleyfair membership.
While kids like Elliott don’t come around every day, there are still a number of gifted children around the world who are looking forward to the future.
Elliott’s advice to other kids who want to pursue something they might be considered too young for? “I suppose the main sort of words would be keep going, you’ve got this, you can achieve great things if you just put your mind to it,” he says. “And I know, it sounds sort of cheesy and cliché, but it's just sort of the best advice for just about anything you can do.”
