Most teenagers spend their time going to high school, playing video games and visiting their friends.
Those years are full of homework, and curfews and testing the waters of heading toward being an adult.
But for one California 14-year-old, his plans are a bit different from the typical teen – he’s preparing for his first job at SpaceX, after graduating from college nearly 6 years earlier than most kids his age.
Kairan Quazi has always been a bit ahead of his time.
My personal journey has really been about disrupting the status quo,” Kairan told People Magazine.
He said his time in college has been “the happiest three years of my life.”
Kairan Quazi will graduate from the Santa Clara University School of Engineering and join SpaceX as a software engineer. Photo from Santa Clara University
As a software engineer on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite program, Kairan will get a chance to work on technology that can help the world, and let him “be part of something bigger.”
“Think of the benefits in let’s say, precision farming, where satellite images can be used to help farmers with managing crop yields and monitoring water levels,” Kairan said.
His path to this point, though, wasn’t always an easy one for him and his parents. By the age of 2, Kairan spoke in full, complete sentences.
“For the longest time, we actually didn’t know until he got tested at 9 years old that he was considered profoundly gifted,” said his mom, Julia Quazi. “He’s an extreme extrovert. His verbal fluency was so strong. So a lot of the things that seemed strange to us for years, we just chalked it up to very strong vocabulary and a strong personality.”
But, some of his personality became “disorienting and isolating,” Julia said. As a young child, he would wake his mom and dad, Mustahid, to talk about what was happening all over the world – including things like why Turkey wasn’t an official member of the European Union.
We actually felt every day that we were failing as parents because we did not know how to help him. We just didn’t have the toolkit to help him feel validated and balanced because we had no idea what we were dealing with.”
By age 9, Kairan struggled with not feeling fulfilled at school. After an IQ test put his intelligence in the 99.9th percentile of the general population, his teacher, pediatrician, and Julia and Mustahid agreed to enroll the third-grader in a community college for a more challenging environment.
From left, Kairan, Julia and Mustahid Quazi. Photo by Getty Images
Finally Kairan had space to learn and grow at the right speed for him. “I felt like I was learning at the level that I was meant to learn,” he said.
But the teenager isn’t all school and learning. Kairan also enjoys typical things that most kids his age do. He said he likes playing video games, such as “Assassin’s Creed” and reading science fiction. While he has friends his own age, Kairan was also able to make new friends at college, as well.
Most of all, Kairan likes to share stories about his path to SpaceX. He hopes to help people understand how hard it is to be young yet ready for a more adult path. Before accepting his current job, Kairan had applied for 98 jobs. He heard back from only three companies.
“I think one of the things I really want to do with telling my story is hopefully have leaders in influential positions challenge their biases and misconceptions,” he said. “Hopefully, I can open the door to more people like me.”
Watch below for a look at this amazing teenager!
