Boy Genius Finishes College at 10, Stuck in Crappy Job at 11

November 6, 2007

boy geniusMozart wrote his first concerto at age five. Tiger Woods learned to play golf at three. And now Madison, New Jersey’s own child prodigy Jason Park is stuck in a crappy job at age 11.

Under the home-school guidance of his mother, Park finished high school at the age of six. He then breezed through college by the time he was eight and capped off his accelerated education by receiving his MBA from Villanova University at the tender age of 10. Now the precocious young man is a first-year consultant with a financial consulting firm making 58K a year, working 70-hour weeks and hating every minute of it.

“I never really thought about what I wanted to do after my schooling,” said a visibly tired Park as he unclips his necktie and downs chocolate milk at McSorley’s Pub in Manhattan where he and some of his colleagues meet for the occasional drink after work.

“I was always good at math, so my parents told me to study finance like John Kenneth Galbraith. Great! So here I am, a working stiff busting my ass in low-level financial advisory hell, counseling old biddies about whether to buy 10 shares of this mutual fund or that, one all in a futile attempt to make partner by 15.”

With his education complete and a ton of student loans hanging over his head, Park had no choice but to enter the workforce. “I kind of wanted to kick around for a while, you know, have some ‘me’ time… maybe backpack through Euro Disney for a few weeks.”

That didn’t pan out. Park was recruited right out of school. “I thought he was a ‘little person’ when we first met, which actually helped him,” said company recruiter David Goldfarb. “We provide equal opportunity for the differently sized here. I realized I was wrong about Park after he interrupted my interview questions repeatedly to show me his Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards.”

Park said his parents were “banking on People Magazine or one of those stupid 20/20 shows to pick up my story when I was in high school so I could get some scholarship offers. They wrote letters and sent in videos of me playing my mini violin and building robots, but no one was biting. It seems there’s a bunch of genius kids like me whipping through cut-rate colleges.”

The young consultant perked up for moment as he fondly recalled his college days. “I really miss Nova. We just kicked it at the frat house all day. We played video games 24/7 and jammed to Dave Matthews. It was totally chill! I could actually palm the basketball in the frat house Pop-a-Shot games.”

But his voice quickly returned to its joyless monotone as he thought to the future, “Now, I got sixty years of crunching numbers and drinking bad coffee at client sites to look forward to. Whoopde-frickin-do. Look at these bags under my eyes… Christ almighty.”

Park lives at home with his parents in Madison for the time being. “I’m saving up to build a super cool tree fort.”

When Park does have time to hang out with friends in his neighborhood, he is usually teased about being different (he only wears sensible golf clothes and loafers) and his recent weight gain. “Yeah, guess I got a bit of a gut now, but hey, I work so much I just don’t have time to hit the swings like I used to.”

Jeff Lyons
Education Reporter

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Jeff Lyons

Author: Jeff Lyons

I am the proprietor of this dumb site and Philly Trail Runners. I also co-host Junk Miles with Chip & Jeff. You can follow my daily nonsense on Twitter and Bluesky .

67 Replies to “Boy Genius Finishes College at 10, Stuck in Crappy Job at 11”

  1. I can’t believe anyone would think this is real…wow. I mean, the headline alone tells you it’s satire. Gullible isn’t in the dictionary, btw. Anyway, hilarious article.

  2. For those of you who don’t believe this… It’s not that impossible. A kid at Cal Poly San Luois was a senior, at the age of 11, denied his Harvard acceptance because Cal Poly gave him a full ride, free of course. His sister was supossed to be even smarter, she is about 7 now. This info was given out last year in my school newspaper, and Cal Poly loves its trophy. Don’t deny something like this so fast, people are amazing things, some more than other….

  3. For those of you who don’t believe this… It’s not that impossible. A kid at Cal Poly San Luois was a senior, at the age of 11, denied his Harvard acceptance because Cal Poly gave him a full ride, free of course. His sister was supossed to be even smarter, she is about 7 now. This info was given out last year in my school newspaper, and Cal Poly loves its trophy. Don’t deny something like this so fast, people are amazing things, some more than other….

  4. He is obviously very intellegent, but he is still a child emotionally. He takes out yu-gi-o cards for God sakes! This kid needs some “me” time just like he said. He is still growing up. He shouuld be at home doing what he wants to do. Heck, he would probably gain tons more knowledge about the world that they cannot teach him in school if he was allowed to explore his world a little bit. I bet you it would be a better investment in his life if his parents just let him be. It would pay off for him because he could find out who he is, what he stands for, and he can explore the world and learn more and build on our knowledge of it later. He needs to grow up healthy and happy just like any other kid.

  5. He is obviously very intellegent, but he is still a child emotionally. He takes out yu-gi-o cards for God sakes! This kid needs some “me” time just like he said. He is still growing up. He shouuld be at home doing what he wants to do. Heck, he would probably gain tons more knowledge about the world that they cannot teach him in school if he was allowed to explore his world a little bit. I bet you it would be a better investment in his life if his parents just let him be. It would pay off for him because he could find out who he is, what he stands for, and he can explore the world and learn more and build on our knowledge of it later. He needs to grow up healthy and happy just like any other kid.

  6. Haha, funny story. Smurf, that goes for all of you! Have you noticed that Asians and Indians work their butt off and become rich ass doctors. Then the Americans are like all jealous and crap and their like oh your so lucky and rich! Man, we work hard to make that money!!! Then all these people sit at home and cry about their lousy stupid lives and sit at home and get child support for the gazillion children they had with their “baby daddy” or whatever!

  7. Haha, funny story. Smurf, that goes for all of you! Have you noticed that Asians and Indians work their butt off and become rich ass doctors. Then the Americans are like all jealous and crap and their like oh your so lucky and rich! Man, we work hard to make that money!!! Then all these people sit at home and cry about their lousy stupid lives and sit at home and get child support for the gazillion children they had with their “baby daddy” or whatever!

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