University of Memphis sophomore Alex Brueggeman has often been called a “Doogie Howser” but because he is only 11 years old, Alex wasn’t even born when the show first aired in 1989.
Alex, a violinist and third degree black belt, gets up at 5 a.m. with his mother to make the hour-and-a-half drive from Jackson, Tenn. to The U of M for his 8 a.m. class.
The youngest student at the The University, Alex is majoring in biology, and minoring in chemistry. He plans to get a college degree at roughly the same time most people his age are simply trying to overcome the state’s driver’s license exam.
After he gets his undergraduate degree, Alex said he will probably go on to get a doctorate in biology, as well as a driver’s license.
“My husband and I knew Alex was a little different when he was two,” said his mother, Gay McCarter. “He announced at age two that he was offended that we put child locks on the cabinet doors. He told us that he wasn’t stupid, and that he wasn’t going to drink anything poisonous.”
At age four, Alex was reading a novel series, and wasn’t at all challenged by the material, according to McCarter.
His parents withdrew him from public school, and tested his IQ to decide how they should pace his home schooling. They discovered that Alex is profoundly gifted, which means he has an IQ of 180 or above.
Only one in 20 million Americans have an IQ above 180.
“The first three years of home schooling were miserable, because I wasn’t moving fast enough for Alex,” McCarter said.
At age nine, Alex was ready for a college-level education, and took an advanced Spanish class at Jackson State Community College. After that, Alex attended Lambuth University in Jackson.
Alex plans to go into the field of bioinformatics, which is the in-depth study of genetics, and found that while both Jackson State and Lambuth were very supportive of his excelled capabilities, he needed a larger school.
“Lambuth and Jackson State were just too small, in equipment, but especially expertise,” McCarter said.
So Alex decided to pull up stakes and transfer to The U of M.
“The research here is great,” Alex said. “It really makes a difference.”
Some colleges have special programs for profoundly gifted students in which students live on campus, but that idea did not appeal to either Alex or McCarter.
“We wanted him at home,” McCarter said.
“They have special chaperone people,” Alex added.
While a student at his age may seem to struggle in the new sociological landscape of a college campus, he is quick to shrug off any poor assumptions.
“I don’t get scared getting up in front of people,” Alex said.
Besides playing the violin at The U of M, Alex participates in equestrian sports, chess, theater, soccer, tennis and racquetball.
But despite Alex’s extracurricular activities, some skeptics say that a bright child may know information about a subject, but that their lack of life experience limits their understanding of a subject.
However, Alex seems to disagree.
“There are some things I haven’t experienced, but people are born with an understanding of base feelings and emotions, and everyone who is living experiences these emotions to some extent,” Alex said.
“Studies show that the gifted have incredible emotional sensitivities, and that emotional growth compounds exponentially with intellectual growth,” McCarter added.
Alex has friends all around the country including Jackson and The U of M.
His friends in California and Florida are other kids his age going to college, and they share their experiences over the phone and the internet.
He met his friends here at Memphis through class and hobbies.
Still, Alex is most often seen walking with his mother.
McCarter drops him off in the morning and bides her time while Alex is in class. Many students stare, or wonder who is the student: Alex or his mother?
For some older kids, college is a time of freedom from parents, late nights spent partying and a diet of macaroni and cheese. But Alex doesn’t think he is missing out.
“That’s what grad school will be for,” he said.
For now, Alex is busy, happy and challenged. In spite of his age difference, Alex is more like a typical college student than one might imagine.
“My favorite part of the school day?” Alex said. “I like class, but probably heading home and sleeping, or the weekends when I get to play.”
