Photo: Bill Feig
Elijah Precciely is far from your average 11-year-old.
The homeschooled Baton Rouge native started taking business, biology, and physics courses at Southern University at the age of 8. Then, in May of 2018, he became the youngest person to receive a full-ride scholarship to the Louisiana historically Black university. He has now officially started his first full semester of college.
His father Stephen Precciely told The Advocate, "Find that child’s genius, what they like, and nurture that even if you have to seek outside help, then that’s what you do and that’s what we did."
As a result of earning credits from the previous classes that he's taken at the school, Precciely began his collegiate career as a sophomore in Southern's Honors College.
"I'm not just here part-time, I'm here full-time...," Precciely told KTVE. "You have to have your mindset, 'Oh I have to learn this.' You have to have a mindset to actually know, 'hey, I have to learn this; my life depends on it'. Act like your life depends on it because it does. When you learn, you've increased your life."
In addition to being a full-time physics student and a published author, Precciely hosts his own weekly radio show and has applied for five patents for his inventions. When he first started making his own inventions at an early age, his mother, Pamela Precciely (a Southern University alumna), contacted Southern’s physics department about getting her son some lab space on campus.
Since then, young Precciely has made school history and is well on his way to joining his mother in the alumni club of Southern University.