16-year-old girl graduates from university

Manila: Sixteen-year-old Mikaela Irene Fudolig has graduated from the premier University of the Philippines as the youngest student to achieve the highest honours possible, a local paper said.

"Instead of taking the road less travelled, the new graduates should make new roads," Fudolig said at her valedictory speech. She has a general weighted average of 1.099 and also received the Best BS Physics Student award, and the Dean's Medallion for Excellence in Undergraduate Studies at the UP College of Science, the Inquirer said.

Fudolig plans to teach and finish her masters in physics at the same time. That would make her a teenage teacher to students of her age, and to younger, more gifted students who would be allowed to enter the college thanks to UP's Early College Placement Programme (ECPP).

"It has succeeded. I was able to show people that it can be done," Fudolig said, adding her experience as a young, underage, but gifted college student at UP became a "happy experience" because of the ECPP.

She was 11 when she entered Quezon City Science High. In the summer of that school year, she sought permission to be allowed to enrol for a higher maths class at UP.

Dr. Leticia Penano Ho, then dean of the College of Education and president of the Philippine Association for the Gifted, studied her case, and designed the ECPP for her.

That summer, classmates in college stared at her babie doll shoes. She got a grade of 72 in the first exam, a week after classes started. But she got the highest score in the second exam, and a grade of one (highest) at the end of summer. She also passed the advance placement exam for Math 14.

The following semester, she enrolled as a non-degree student and volunteer for Ho's special programme for gifted students. But she also enrolled as a sophomore at Quezon City Science High, a plan she had to give up because of time constraints.

After she completed her first year with an average of 1.395, she wrote to former Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus and former UP Chancellor (now president) Emerlinda Roman to make her a regular student at UP.

She joined a religious group, attended two music classes, a Japanese language course and passed a Japanese language proficiency exam. She also kept in touch with her friends in high school and attended their junior-senior prom.

"I am glad to have proven wrong the people who think that a child with mental abilities is not emotionally prepared to enter college," she said, adding that before the birth of the ECPP, there were no comprehensive programmes to help, guide, and maximise the knowledge of gifted children.