18-year-old Daniel Obaji has emerged the youngest ever graduate at New York University Abu Dhabi, class of 2019.
The gifted biology major student moved to Abu Dhabi from Nigeria to pursue his studies when only 15 and commences the latest venture of his academic career (PhD in biology) at the New York University, New York in the United States of America.
His specialty is in neuroscience and is focusing on computational biology, which is a combination of computer studies and biology.
According to Daniel Obaji:
“I started schooling very early at the age of two because my mother was going to nursing school. At the same time, she admitted me in school.
I was in kindergarten in the same class with my sister, who was four years old.
I skipped a few grades and soon became used to being the youngest person in my class. I had a three to four-year head start on everyone else.
At the age of 11, I went to a paramilitary boarding school where everyone had to figure out how to survive and no one cared about how old you were.
When I reached NYU Abu Dhabi, I was worried about the same things that everyone worries about – like saying goodbye to my friends, figuring out housing and classes.
I finished a chapter of my life and my PhD is the next chapter.
I am not trying to break any trends. No matter where you are from or how old you are, as long as you put your mind to something and put in effort, you will get the results that you want.
For me the conversations with my friends and hearing about their experiences and the diversity of opinions was the highlight of my days at NYU Abu Dhabi.”
NYU Abu Dhabi’s class of 2019 (275 students from 75 countries) is the largest at the university to date.
Daniel’s mother works as a community health worker in Edo, Nigeria.
