Twelve-year-old Alena Wicker is headed to college and has some big plans after graduation. The Arizona pre-teen already finished high school through homeschooling and has aspirations to work for NASA one day soon–– when she turns 16.
According to ABC News, Alena earned admission to Arizona State University and plans to major in astronomical and planetary sciences and chemistry.
The child prodigy told the outlet she started growing her passion of building things as an infant playing with LEGOs. She told KXXV she “always liked dreaming of being an engineer because throughout my life I liked building.”
Now, she has plans to build rovers that go to outer space like the one sent to Mars recently.
“I’ll be driving one of those future space mobiles by the time I graduate college,” Alena declared to ABC. Her mom, Daphne Mcquarter said her dreams of working for NASA started when she was a four-year-old. “...She said I’m going to work for NASA and I’m going to go up there, she would point to the stars,” Mcquarter said.
Alena says she’s “just planning it all as I go,” but is going about her incredible journey with some this message of wisdom and hope: “It doesn’t matter what your age or what you’re planning to do,” she added, “Go for it, dream, then accomplish it.”
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