• Growing number of pre-teen students are taking up university studies in US, Canada
• Young students advance to top universities by learning languages, subjects in early age
• Michael Kearney, born in 1984, holds the title of being youngest to graduate at eight years of age

Sept 07, 2016: Like other 12-year-olds, Cendikiawa n (Diki) Suryaatmadja is getting ready for a new school year.

But unlike other 12-year-olds, Diki will study physics and take additional classes in math, chemistry, and economics at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

He is one of a growing number of youngsters enrolling in universities.

Follow NewsGram on Twitter

"I'm very excited to meet the new students and make new friends," said the pre-teen in an interview with CBC News.

https://twitter.com/ScotForLiberty/status/773127539967614976

Diki, who is from West Java, a province in Indonesia, will be living with his father in an apartment near the university. The boy taught himself English in about six months by living in Singapore, reading English articles and watching subtitled English movies — especially comedies.

"Little by little, through osmosis, you can learn [a] language," he told CBC.

Follow NewsGram on Facebook

South of the border, Cornell University in New York also welcomed 12-year-old first-year student Jeremy Shuler this week.

American Michael Kearney, born in 1984, remains the youngest ever to have graduated with a college degree, at age eight. He went on to teach college while still a teenager. (VOA)