Well, you can look at it this way, he would have never been well-served by the traditional society-determined path anyway. A project like this has the tendency to just blow away all other considerations.
If you were hiring for a physics position, would you take the guy who got straight A's on his physics coursework, or the guy who built an effing nuclear reactor in his bedroom?
The sad thing is that if you were faculty, looking for a graduate student to supervise, you'd probably pick the one with straight A's and no hobbies, because you could get them to do whatever you wanted, without risk of them getting their own ideas or leaving.
That's probably not true. I have run into very few faculty who want to have robots working for them, and I know quite a few faculty who are suspicious of perfect transcripts from potential grad students because it often means they avoided difficult courses or outside projects.
>quite a few faculty who are suspicious of perfect transcripts
In an undergrad department meeting, the topic was brought up on "why your parents should not call or arrive at the school seeking to talk to professors about their student's grades."
It's an open secret at some schools, Harvard being one of the most famous, that if you're rich or well-connected enough, you get in and coast with a B average, with relative ease--a C average at the worst.
Like I said, he never would have been served by the traditional path. With that kind of talent and drive, you don't need the academy, the academy needs you. They'll find a spot for him.
Adding to what others have say, in my department the choice would have been a no-brainer for the guy that has proved he can self-teach and do independent research. There's nothing faculty loves more than motivated people that can do a lot by themselves with just little directions from them!
Almost there, but you lost it in the end. The straight A student would win not because he is less proactive but because he is more versatile to handle any task. Someone who is deeply invested in a technology from an early age will have seen lesser challenges and diversifications than someone who takes all courses all around.
>The straight A student would win not because he is less proactive but because he is more versatile to handle any task.
The straight-A student is certainly able to put their minds to whatever they are told to, at least enough to get an A in each subject (and possibly no more).
This dichotomy isn't the actual choice, though. You'd hire the person with straight A/A-'s (read: nobody cares about perfect grades) from Stanford/Berkeley/MIT/Caltech who also worked directly with some well-known professors, publishing papers that advanced the field, albeit incrementally, either building experiments or developing theoretical results.
In other words, the person who has demonstrated solid abstract knowledge (breadth/versatility) and actual ability to do research (depth/hands-on).
There is very little about a university education that requires it to be "the traditional society-determined path." It's daily lectures and some work. There is plenty of time to be creative.
CalTech takes in 200 total freshman a year (well back in 1999 it was 200) from the entire world, so they'd just choose the kid who built his own reactor AND had straight A's.
If you were hiring for a physics position, would you take the guy who got straight A's on his physics coursework, or the guy who built an effing nuclear reactor in his bedroom?