While many of today’s adults frequently complain that teenagers are last lazy, no-good and unmotivated, a few very special teenagers are proving them wrong. These five teenagers have all accomplished amazing things before even legally becoming an adult.
At the age of 18, Gabrielle Turnquest, a teenager from Florida who took Britain’s Bar Exam AND passed to become a lawyer. The teen graduated from Liberty University at the age of 16 with a degree in psychology and then proceeded to enroll at the University of Law in New York. She then took the exam in Britain at the age of 18 and has now been called to the Bar of England and Wales and the Bahamas Bar.
Jack Andraka was 15 years old and only a freshman in high school when he completed groundbreaking research into pancreatic cancer in which the early stages of the cancer is detected 28 times cheaper and faster, as well as 100 more sensitive than the previous testing. Jack was awarded first place in the 2012 Intel Science Competition for this research and has now continued to be involved in Ted Talks as well as FutureMed and Chicago Ideas Week.
Malala Yousafzai is the youngest ever Nobel Prize laureate. She is a women’s rights activist who began writing a blog depicting what life was like under Taliban occupation in Pakistan. On Oct. 9, 2012, Yousafzai was the victim of an attack and was shot through the forehead down to her shoulder, but miraculously survived. Malala is now an advocate for women’s rights as well as worldwide access to education. She was the winner of Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize and has since won numerous awards and spoken at multiple conferences, as well as being the subject of the 2015 documentary, "He Named Me Malala."
Rowan Blanchard scored her breakout role in 2014 in the hit Disney Channel show, “Girl Meets World.” Since this role, Blanchard has become an outspoken young feminist and activist, speaking at the UN Women’s annual conference summit where she lectured on the effect that gender inequality has upon our nation’s youth. This young teen has also penned an essay on the importance of intersectional feminism.
Amandla Stenberg. Though this may be a name you recognize from the hit series, "The Hunger Games," where she stars as Rue, Stenberg is also an activist who feels strongly about racism and culture. She once made a video for a school project called, “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows,” discussing how white pop stars have adapted their ways from classic black culture while seemingly ignoring the ugly parts such as police brutality.
