Belgian child prodigy Laurent Simons is real-life ‘Young Sheldon’, completes graduation at age 11

11-year-old graduate Laurent Simons (Image: Instagram)

Eleven-year-old Laurent Simons has become the second youngest graduate in the world. The Belgian child prodigy hailing from the coastal town of Ostend recently completed his graduation from the University of Antwerp with a Bachelor's degree in Physics.

The youngest graduate in the world remains Michael Kearney, who completed his Bachelor’s in Anthropology from the University of South Alabama in 1994 at age 10.

The 11-year-old genius completed his graduation – which usually takes an adult three years to complete -- in just one year, reported Psych News Daily.

Speaking to Dutch daily De Telegraaf, the second youngest graduate in the world said: “I don’t really care if I am the youngest. It is all about acquiring knowledge for me.”

The 11-year-old who’s chasing immortality said: “This is the first puzzle piece in my goal of replacing body parts with mechanical parts. I want to be able to replace as many body parts as possible with mechanical parts. I have mapped out a path to get there. You can see it as a big puzzle. Quantum physics – the study of the smallest particles – is the first piece of the puzzle.”

Simons, much like the fictional child prodigy ‘Sheldon Cooper’ or ‘Young Sheldon’, completed his high school education in just 1.5 years at the age of eight.

In the future, he wants to “work with the best professors in the world, look inside their brains, and find out how they think”.

Simons will now strive to obtain his Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Antwerp while working on his PhD simultaneously.