Sixteen year-old Jivan Ramesh made history at Stony Brook University when he walked across the stage at the Commencement ceremony, to become the youngest SBU graduate in many decades.
He joined the graduate program at 13, and graduated in 2025, in just 3 years, during which he would take 20 credits a semester! Speeding through his program with Summer classes and doing his lab work ahead of time. His performance merited an SBU news report headlined: From Cello to Cells: Jivan Ramesh Is SBU’s Youngest Graduate in Decades.”
And he did not take a simple major. Ramesh graduated as a “double major” – in biochemistry and music.
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“It honestly still feels a little bit like a dream,” Ramesh told Beth Squire, the author of the news report. “With a lot of my things, it’s been like I didn’t quite realize I was there until I was there.”
Homeschooling had taught him how to manage his schedule, and priorities, plus keep up his extracurricular activities and get everything done on time, he said. All this despite the fact that he had to travel an hour each way to and from SBU; of course, with the support of parents who stayed back on campus to take him home, or come back to get him. In fact, his family was so invested in Jivan’s accomplishments and abilities that they decided to move closer to SBU when the young student was still halfway through, the news report says.
He may have been much younger than his peers in class, but Jivan took part in lots of student groups and even held campus jobs. It was almost as if he was a prodigy in what he took up – serving as secretary of the Broadway Orchestra, as music director for the Actors Conservatory, and even as peer tutor at the Academic Success and Tutoring Center. There was history behind this – he had been playing with the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York in Flushing since 2016. Today, he is their principal cellist, and in addition, teaches cello, theory and notation.
He explained why he took up both biochemistry and music as his double majors – he saw a connection, “Music has something of a healing power. I was interested in the biochemical process that results in that. That’s initially what got me into it.” His father who studied biochemistry and Jivan’s “own fascination with how music affects mental health and behavior,” took him down the path to choosing his majors.
While at SBU, his composition “Memory” was played by a world-renowned guzheng player he invited to perform it. “It was just such a wonderful experience to bring my work in the Chinese orchestra here to campus and help spread those ideas,” he said. The young man continues to compose, his latest being an electronic rendition, just before he graduated.
Now he has applied to several graduate programs in music and aims for becoming a composer.
But first, he plans to get a driver learners permit, possibly the only thing he was not able to squeeze into his busy three years.