He is only 18 but he has already earned a law degree in Australia, making him the youngest lawyer in Australian history.
Jozef Maynard Erece, who immigrated to Australia from New Zealand in 2012, has just been recently awarded a law degree by the University of Southern Queensland (USQ).
While many 18-year-olds are sweating over ATAR results while working at a local fast food outlet, the Australian Scholarships Group hailed Mr Erece as the “the youngest lawyer to graduate at age 18 in the Southern Hemisphere.”
Born and raised in New Zealand in 1996 to Filipino parents, Mr Erece was considered a gifted child.
Only three-years-old, he started reading and by age 11 he was already a high school senior.
Erece graduated Valedictorian at St. Peter’s Catholic School in Cambridge, New Zealand in 2011.
He was invited by the prestigious Stanford University in the United Sates to study under its Institutes’ Program, a special course for gifted youth where they can take university subjects, but he and his family turned it down.
Mr Erece then entered USQ in 2012 for his bachelor’s degree in Law and completed it in just three years.
As for his future plans, Mr Erece said he planned to be admitted to the Bar Association of Queensland and to take further post-graduate studies.
He said he became interested in law in order to have a positive impact on the world.
“I initially sought this degree in law partly due to the versatility that it offers in terms of societal navigation,” the young Erece said.
“Whether through law, commerce, politics, the academia or otherwise, my humanist aspiration to precipitate empirically positive change will remain constant. (9news.com.au)