This is interesting to me because despite having successfully completed my PhD, I would have had no luck if I had to specialize earlier in my academic career. I

This is interesting to me because despite having successfully completed my PhD, I would have had no luck if I had to specialize earlier in my academic career. I feel that my brain took longer on average to develop and that I was not capable of understanding advanced maths or computer science concepts until I was about 18-19 (first year of college). It was only then that I began to excel in course work and really enjoy math. By outside objective measures I should not have gone on to study science. In principal I think that this kind of early specialization, when students are capable of it, seems like a great idea! So much of what we learn in high school in the US is useless.