During his first in-person biology lab on campus, the professor asked the class to find an object and mop it up for bacteria. Most of the students wiped down their desks and phones. Sawsan Ahmed reached into his backpack and pulled out his white teddy bear, Ben.
Her classmates at Broward College looked at her curiously; one of them casually asked his age.
“Ten,” Ahmed replied to freshmen and sophomores.
At the start of the semester, they often called her “sweetheart” and “sweetheart,” but by the end of the year they were looking for her academic expertise.
That was about two years ago. Sawsan, who is nearly 5ft 8in tall like some of her peers but wears ponytails and other hairstyles neatly styled by her mother on Wednesday, graduated from Broward College, the 61-year-old youngest to graduate. school history. A 15-year-old previously held the record.
The 12-year-old earned an associate’s degree with a concentration in Biological Sciences and a GPA of 4.0. In January, she will go to the University of Florida, where she will study microbiology and cell science.
“It was awesome. I’m so happy,” Sawsan said after the ceremony, her first graduation ceremony. Her favorite part was when Broward College President Gregory Adam Haile recognized her on stage.
“Thank you, Sawsan, you have helped us demonstrate that Broward College can support dreams regardless of age or academic pursuit,” Haile said, to applause from the crowd.
LOVE DISNEY, MINECRAFT MOVIES
At first glance, Sawsan is like any other girl her age. She enjoys playing video games like Minecraft and watching Disney movies – she recently saw “Encanto” and loved it, although “Zootopia” remains her favorite.
But she was amazing people from a young age.
Shortly after he was born in Providence, Rhode Island, his father, Dr. Wesam Ahmed, remembers Sawsan crying, so he began to recite the Islamic call to prayer. She turned to him and immediately stopped crying. He stopped reciting and she started crying again.
The nurse looked at the newborn, her father and then back to her. She ordered the father to start reciting, which led to Sawsan’s moaning ending – again.
Ahmed rushed to his wife’s side and announced that he thought the baby’s IQ was high because she recognized his voice, noting the months he spent alongside his wife talking to Sawsan in the womb.
Jeena Santos Ahmed laughed at her husband, thinking he behaved like any other proud father. She laughed at him, but soon realized he was right.
Now, he doesn’t miss an opportunity to tease her about it. “He talks about it all the time,” Jeena said.
IF YOU CAN DRIVE 200 MILES AN HOUR, TRY IT
At nine months old, Sawsan started to say “mum” and “goodbye”.
“She was a bit of a picky baby, so it was really good that she could tell me what she wanted,” her mother recalls.
At 15 months, Sawsan had reconstructed full sentences. During her visits to the pediatrician, she approached the doctor directly.
At 2, she could write and read. (Most children learn to read at age 6 or 7, although some learn at age 4 or 5, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.) She handed over handwritten letters to her mother, although the grammar wasn’t not correct because it spelled the words phonetically. .
It was then that her parents, who refused to disclose Sawsan’s IQ, began to wonder if she should attend a regular school. They turned to private institutions, but ultimately opted for Jeena, who earned a doctorate. from Brown University, the home teacher.
Sawsan learned quickly. At the age of 5, her parents began to include her in family decisions. When they weighed the pros and cons of moving to Weston in 2014 or staying in Rhode Island, Ahmed asked his daughter what she wanted to do. She couldn’t wait to visit Disney, so she sided with South Florida.
Her parents encouraged her interests and personalized her curriculum. Because she loved bugs, they took her to the Museum of Science in Boston. Because she was drawn to space, they took her to the Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County.
And because they wanted to motivate his love for learning, they emboldened him to ask questions, even if they were difficult to answer. She always asks tough questions, including: “Why are we Muslims? And “Why are some people against same-sex marriage?” “
At age 9, Sawsan felt ready to take the post-secondary preparation test to determine if she could handle a college job. Her parents said they encouraged her to go at her own pace but to question herself.
“I always tell him: you can drive 200 miles an hour. If you want to drive at 50, that’s okay, but you should try doing the 200, ”his father said. “We never made her sit down and study; she does it because she wants to do it.
THEY THINK MOM WAS A STUDENT
Sawsan enrolled at Broward College in January 2018. She opted for dual enrollment to graduate from high school at the same time, which she obtained in the spring.
When she applied, the year of birth drop-down menu only went back to 2006; she was born on January 14, 2009. She had to request special documents to apply.
When her mother first took her to the Davie campus to get her ID, people assumed her mother was the student and that Sawsan had just come with her.
“Everyone was looking at me,” she said. “But I was really excited.”
She passed most of her science classes, but struggled with her liberal art classes which required more memorization.
In June 2021, her father, an oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic Weston, was transferred to the clinic center in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The family moved across the world. Sawsan continued her studies remotely as she had taken all of her courses online except for the biology lab that first summer.
In the Middle East, she was able to frequent more amusement parks like Warner Bros. World and Ferrari World. She has also been ice skating with cousins and plans to join a women’s basketball team soon.
WANTS TO WORK IN ARTIFICIAL MEDICAL INTELLIGENCE
On the professional side, Sawsan dreams of working with artificial intelligence in medicine. She read a study a few months ago that concluded that artificial intelligence may be more accurate than radiology at detecting cancer in patients, so she wants to explore that possibility.
She will participate in the UF online program and will travel to Gainesville in the summer for her laboratories. She chose UF because she heard it offered a course called Python Programming for Biologists.
“It’s basically everything I’m interested in combined in one course,” she said.
When asked if she regrets anything, Sawsan replied no.
“There is definitely nothing that I am missing,” she said. “I can still do a lot of the things people my age do. Going to college was just something more; it did not replace my childhood in any way.
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