An 18 year old young achiever has been awarded his undergraduate law degree from the University of Southern Queensland.
Jozef Erece, 18, graduated from the University of Southern Queensland on Friday. Graduating at an age when many of his law school peers would have started their degrees, Erece is believed to be one of the youngest law graduates ever.
Erece will be able to practice law in Australia after he completes his Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice at the
Queensland University of Technology and gains admission. From there, he is considering opportunities at the Bar and postgraduate study.
The Filipino national who grew up in New Zealand graduated school at the age of 11 as dux of St. Peter’s Catholic School in Cambridge. He was offered a place at both Stanford University and Oxford University in courses for gifted children at the age of 10, but instead opted for a law degree.
He enrolled at Waikato University’s law school in 2012 – as the youngest entrant on record.
"Whether through law, commerce, politics, the academia or otherwise, my humanist aspiration to precipitate empirically positive change will remain a constant,” Erece said.
Aside from being a recent law graduate, Erece is a Taekwondo black-belt holder, a semi-professional basketball player and an orchestra violinist. He became a member of New Zealand’s taekwondo Olympic demonstration team when he was only nine.
Erece is not the only young graduate to receive a law degree. Last year, 19 year old graduate Liuzhuo Chen was admitted as a lawyer in Victoria, giving rise to speculation that she may be the state’s youngest ever lawyer.
