Like many boys his age, 12-year-old Caleb Anderson wants to be an astronaut when he grows up and has goals to be the first man to visit Mars. And having already been admitted to Georgia Tech, he could be on his way to the Red Planet sooner than you think.
According to WXIA-TV and WSB-TV in Atlanta, Caleb's parents have known he was gifted since he was less than a year old. His mother, Claire Anderson, told WSB that he was beginning to mimic her words by the time he was three weeks old. Nine months later, WXIA reports that Caleb was able to use sign language to communicate over 250 words.
"I'm not really smart," Caleb told CBS News in October. "I just grasp information quickly. So, if I learn quicker, then I get ahead faster."
WSB reports that Caleb is currently taking classes at both a local high school and at Chattahoochee Tech, a technical college in suburban Atlanta. In October, Caleb toured Georgia Tech and was later granted admission. He could begin attending classes at the revered Atlanta university as soon as next year.
But Caleb has plans beyond college.
“I think I am going to go to Mars, and do more school, I think, and try to get my master’s at Georgia Tech,” Caleb told WSB. “Then do an internship with Elon Musk, and then I’ll probably get my PhD at MIT. And then I think I’ll start working at either NASA. Or SpaceX.”
Shortly after admission into Georgia Tech, WXIA reports that a representative for The Steve & Marjorie Harvey Foundation — a charitable foundation started by comedian and TV host Steve Harvey — told Caleb that the actor would be paying for his three remaining semesters at Chattahoochee Tech.
“He’s kind of always been this way, where you’ll ask these very deep, profound questions, and you don’t expect to see that from a three-year-old,” Caleb's father, Kobi Anderson, told WSB. “That’s kind of been our road, our journey.”
“If you want to succeed, you have to do two things. Number one, you have to learn to fail,” Caleb told WSB. “That’s a really big part of winning, too.... And the second part is, you always try... If somebody says, ‘You can’t do that,’ that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
