Real life “Young Sheldon” set to graduate from high school even though he already has a bachelor degree

You’ve seen “Young Sheldon,” the CBS sitcom about a kid genius whose intelligence puts him well ahead of his peers. In San Juan Capistrano, there’s a real life Young Sheldon, who at the age of 15 had already graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

While extremely impressive, his educational journey is just a little out of order.

Bryson Bisuna, now 17, says that he doesn’t necessarily agree with the genius moniker he’s been dubbed with.

“I don’t know, I don’t really feel like a genius,” Bisuna said. “I just feel like learn stuff fast.”

But Bryson’s father Bernard says that he and his wife Rose noticed early on that their son’s mental abilities were out of the ordinary.

“He was able to actually count before he even walked,” Bernard Bisuna said.

He was learning so quickly that Rose had to quit her job as a preschool teacher to make sure that he wasn’t getting bored in his everyday life.

By the time he was 11 he was already enrolled in courses at Irvine Valley College, and before that he picked up piano, volleyball and earned a black belt in karate.

Three years later and he was accepted into UC San Diego, despite the fact that he would need a chaperone to go to class.

“They allowed me to use one of their graduate dorms because I needed to live with one of my parents at all times,” Bryson said.

Over the course of that next year, Bryson’s parents took turns rooming with him while the other stayed home in Orange County to be with his sister Breanna.

Bryson says that the classes were fun and challenging, but his parents, who call themselves “ordinary Filipino immigrants,” the curriculum was just a bit out of their range.

“I can’t help him in anything related to very advanced math,” Bernard joked.

He graduated with his degree in Math-Computer Science at 15, at which point his parents assumed he’d continue on to grad school.

Bryson had other plans, hopeful that his parents would let him go to high school instead.

They weren’t supportive of the idea at first, concerned that after a lifetime of sprinting past others in his academic pursuits taking a step backwards would take him in the wrong direction.

But Bryson says that he felt as if he wasn’t ready to continue forward. He chose JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, much to the school counselor’s confusion.

Olivia Huie, a counselor at JSerra, says that she didn’t know how to handle Bisuna’s enrollment.

“This has never happened before,” Huie said.

Bryson had a plan though. He purposely chose the school because of their Law-Magnet Program, which was outside of his STEM comfort zone. He also valued their spiritually-based curriculum.

On top of that, he finally gets to feel normal and experience school with people his own age.

In the end, Bryson’s parents are happy with the detour that he took.

“The idea is, you’re only a kid once,” Bernard said. “You can only experience high school the same way if you’re a certain age. In terms of the universities he can apply to, it will be more broad, because he doesn’t have to consult mom and dad to chaperone him.”

When Bryson becomes Dr. Bisuna one day, he’s hopeful that he can reflect on his academic, social and spiritual education journeys, using that background to propel him into success in his dream career.

“I want to work with artificial intelligence because I can, it can, change the world. And I want to be a part of that.”