I’m writing this as a 17-year-old college freshman. I’m not going to turn 18 before the semester is over; my 18^th birthday is in September, during the first semester of my sophomore year. This means I was 16 turning 17 as I started college, whereas most of my fellow freshmen were 18 turning 19. There are others in the same situation, but personally, I’ve only met a few, and it definitely sparks awe in people who are at the standard age. Comments are, for the most part, positive: “Wow, you must be so smart! Did you skip a grade?” “No way, that must mean you’re, like, a genius.”

Okay, I wouldn’t say that I’m a genius (although I think my parents would beg to differ—love you, Mom and Dad!). But I can say that I exhibited a lot of intellectual abilities from a young age. It was mostly a matter of me getting education at home before I started school, through my mom reading to me and then teaching me how to read. I said my first words at nine months old and could read at three.

When I started kindergarten, my school’s principal essentially said, “Hold on. She can read at higher than a kindergarten level, how about she spends the reading segment of the day across the hall in the first-grade classroom so that she’s being challenged?” My parents thought this was an awesome idea, and I agreed, so that’s what I did. When I completed that school year, my elementary school considered me to have finished both kindergarten and first grade, and combined with the fact that I was already a year ahead thanks to skipping preschool, I started second grade two years ahead.

Thanks to that unique opportunity, the age difference has been there for most of my life, and these days I forget about it until it comes up in conversation. When I was younger, though, it was a different story. Kids in elementary school loved to pick on me for it, as kids in elementary school do to each other about most things anyway. They thought it made me smaller than them, in more ways than age.

Adults I barely knew, on the other hand, would look at me with widened eyes and say how smart they thought I was, despite never having seen any of my schoolwork unless they were my parents or a teacher. I was bizarrely unique to some of them for having skipped grades, and it made me feel like a spectacle at times.

By the third grade, others had inadvertently taught me that my age in comparison to my peers defined me somehow, that there were assumptions to be made about me. When I was younger I probably talked about my age difference too much, but I can’t help it that for so long my classmates and teachers were sending the message that it was the most interesting characteristic I could possibly have. As I got older, it got better, the usual response when people found out I was younger being a polite “Wow, I would never have expected that, you’re so mature.”

Still, I knew some kind of conversation would be sparked, so I tried not to bring it up. Thankfully, I’ve become far more comfortable talking about it. It’s no longer a sensitive subject for me, though it still irks me to be the receiver of comments like “Why are you a baby? Go back to high school!” and “Oh my god, you’re so little.” It makes me laugh when it’s just a light-hearted joke from a friend, but overall, negative comments about my age get old fast.

That’s not because I’m over-sensitive, or because I’m insecure about my age. In fact, it’s rather the opposite. It’s empowering to know that I haven’t let a couple of years’ difference be an excuse for lower achievement or effort. To be honest, I wouldn’t know if being ahead two years in school made it more of a challenge for me to get into a good school or sustain a high GPA, because I would have done these things anyway.

However, what I do know is that I’ve never considered my age a factor. I know I’m at the same level of capability as my peers, and I always have been; that’s why I was allowed to advance in school the way that I did. The unique opportunity I was given when I was four years old didn’t stop me from continuing to work hard to get where I am.

My bottom line is that I am grateful for the unique educational experience I’ve had. It’s given me a special outlook on life, and it certainly made my education different from what it would’ve been. I just hope that no matter how the people around me see it, it doesn’t change anyone’s view of me and my accomplishments one way or another. After all, someone should be judged on their kindness toward others and the effort they put into living a good life, not the number of years it’s been since they were born.