As many 19-year-olds like Ali Curcio prepare to return to college campuses this month, Curcio herself is looking ahead to a different challenge: the last year of her graduate program at the University of Lynchburg.
Only 16 when she completed her bachelor’s degree at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, Curcio still tries to grasp her current situation, which also includes working a full-time position at her parents’ barbecue restaurant, County Smoak.
“I try more so to create a sense of normalcy around it instead of being like, ‘Oh this is so special, this is so cool,’” Curcio said last Wednesday, sitting outside of her parents’ restaurant. “I think I just try to reach a point of acceptance that this is what my life and my experience looked like.”
According to 2018 U.S. Census data, about 21 million Americans above age 25 have completed a master’s degree. Curcio is looking to join that group before she turns 20 next June.
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While Curcio is getting attention for her unique path, it wasn’t always something she tried to advertise when she was younger.
“I think I actually really went out of my way to hide it sometimes,” Curcio said about how she approached the situation when she was at Mary Baldwin pursuing her undergraduate degree as a mere teenager.
“There were instances where I was the teaching assistant for a couple of different courses ... and I felt like people’s respect for me would change when they found out how young I was. So I really tried to keep that under wraps.”
It’s under wraps no more as Curcio embraces her path forward, knowing well that not everybody operates on the same timeline.
“We live in a society that is very much like, ‘Well at this age you need to do this, and at this age you need to do that,’ and I’ve always been big on trying to deconstruct that,” she said.
“Life is not a race on either side. Me doing things at an accelerated standpoint and ahead of the curve shouldn’t be flagged as something so crazy, just as it shouldn’t be for doing something later.”
Fitting that perspective, she manages the front of house and catering at a barbecue restaurant. Curcio is a native of Kansas City, Missouri.
She was in kindergarten when she was first labeled as a gifted student, and she skipped first grade. Curcio said she went to school from second to eighth grades, but instead of enrolling as a freshman in high school, she skipped all four years, opting to enroll as a collegiate freshman at Mary Baldwin.
At Mary Baldwin, she took part in the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted (PEG), a residential program that allows girls as young as 13 the opportunity to pursue a four-year college degree.
Curcio said the application process was like “buying a lottery ticket” after seeing how small the class sizes were, but after going through the process and visiting the school, she said she “knew this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Curcio was met with some skepticism from family members who thought she might have been too young to be doing the program. But she said her mother was the one who played an integral part in pushing her towards the program, saying she always wanted her to have high expectations for herself.
For a majority of her time at MBU, Curcio was set on pursuing a master of public health, where she wanted to work in the fields of epidemiology or pathology, but her plans changed after experiencing a period of burnout during her last semester.
“I got to a point my senior year where I was working on my thesis project all the time and I thought, ‘I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life in a lab, or just working on data. I can’t do it,’” she said.
Curcio called it “heartbreaking” to be focused during her entire academic career on one goal only to realize it wasn’t where she wanted to go.
“I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I am young and have the ability to change my mind,’” she said.
It was then she realized she still had a passion for science, but rather wanted to share her passion with others, which is why she is pursuing a master of education in science education at the University of Lynchburg.
Her transition into pursuing an educational degree is in part thanks to Dr. David Perault, a professor of biology and environmental sciences at the university and the head of the master of education in science program.
“I owe Dr. Perault some huge kudos,” Curcio said. “He’s what got me into the program to begin with.”
During her application process, Curcio said Perault “wasn’t fazed at all” by a 17-year-old applying to join a master of education program and was “welcoming and understanding from the beginning.”
Perault said he didn’t know Curcio was applying to the program as a 17-year-old at the time but credited her maturity and dedication.
“From the outset I recognized Ali as a passionate individual with a love for science and sharing that love with others,” Perault added. “She is always willing to be involved, and really enjoys expanding her knowledge. I have no doubt she will very soon be a wonderful educator for our next generation.”
Now on the brink of securing a master’s degree by age 20, Curcio also wants to be an advocate for children who have similar circumstances she had.
“I’m really passionate about giving kids the opportunity to learn in the ways that are best for them because it was always a disservice for me,” she said.
“You look at the kids who are overperforming, and we kind of just push them through the way we push the kids who are barely making it through ... and that feels like a disservice to those kids.”
While she wants to teach, Curcio wants to one day work in school administration to address ways students can reach their potential from a young age.
For now, just like any other college student, Curcio battles procrastination and the fight to find a strong school-work-life balance — two things she wants to work on this year.
“The burn out is definitely real, so my main goal is to keep everything separate,” she said. “I’m also trying to figure out who I am, who I want to be and who my people are, while taking a path that is so out of the ordinary. That’s the biggest challenge for now.”