The Downhill Life of a 5-Year-Old English Prodigy Who Passed University at 13

The once famous genius

Sun Tianchang (1994) comes from an intellectual family in Wuhan (Hubei, China). His parents were civil servants and his grandparents were teachers. It was his family's educational background that stimulated Tianchang's desire to learn.

From a young age, Thien Xuong showed intelligence. At 8 months old, he could read simple words in newspaper headlines. At nearly 2 years old, Thien Xuong recognized 2,000 Chinese characters. At 3 years old, he knew more than 280 ancient poems and communicated fluently in English at the age of 5.

During his childhood, Thien Xuong read more than 4,000 books from foreign literature, astronomy, painting, music to programming, science and technology, etc. In addition to loving reading, he is also proficient in playing chess, painting, table tennis, basketball and roller skating.

When he was old enough to go to kindergarten, Thien Xuong only attended for 3 days and then quit. At this time, his parents decided to stay home to teach their son. At the age of 7, his parents sent Thien Xuong to Thai Nguyen 2 Secondary School, but because the knowledge was simple, after only 1 week of going to class, he quit and stayed home.

Thien Xuong's family believes that the essence of education is to liberate people, not to constrain them. Imposition will destroy a child's future and the examination system will tire them out. Therefore, under the education of his parents, although he did not go to school, at the age of 6, Thien Xuong won first prize in the city-level English speaking competition for middle school students.

At the age of 10, Thien Xuong passed the CET-4 English certificate, equivalent to university level. In addition, he also won second prize in the first national physics competition for young people and was highly appreciated by scientist Ha To Huu. He also knew the Analects , Zizhi Tongjian , Shiji and other classic works. At that time, Thien Xuong was known as a famous child prodigy in the region.

13 years old passed university entrance exam

At the age of 11, Thien Xuong dreamed of taking the university entrance exam. To ensure a systematic education, his parents sent him to a local private high school. According to Thien Xuong's mother, this was the right school for her son's development.

*Sun Tianchang (left) - a famous child prodigy in China. Photo: Baidu*

During his two years there, he spent more than half of his time studying on his own. In June 2006, he took the Tianchang University entrance exam and scored 594.5 points, but was not enough to pass the entrance exam to the University of Science and Technology of China. He decided to retake the exam and take it a second time.

This time, his family sent Thien Xuong to the city's key school - Thai Nguyen 5 High School, to repeat grade 12. In June 2007, he took the university entrance exam for the second time and scored 659 points and was on the list of candidates admitted to Tsinghua University. However, with the support of his family, he still chose the University of Science and Technology of China.

Slipping away after college

Entering university at the age of 13, he changed completely, started playing around and not focusing on studying. Because he had many talents, Thien Xuong spent his time on hobbies instead of focusing on studying. At the age of 18, Thien Xuong should have graduated from university or continued his studies. However, because he neglected his studies, he could not graduate on time. It was not until 2013 that Thien Xuong graduated from university.

After graduating, he did not pursue a master's degree. Because of his low GPA, Thien Xuong missed many opportunities to pursue postgraduate research. It was his diverse interests that made it difficult for him to balance, affecting his studies.

Now, at the age of 30, he is still struggling to find his place in society because he has no future direction. Once a Chinese prodigy, Thien Xuong has been failing in his university years until now.

Many people believe that it was the comfort of his family's educational environment that made Thien Xuong unable to adapt after entering university. This led to the 'unstoppable decline' of the once famous prodigy in China.