\u00a0Swalwell used $250K in campaign funds to pay lawyer, state filings reveal\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cTook some placement tests to skip middle school and high school and I passed all those so I just went to college,\u201d said Diep. \u00a0<\/p>\n
He attended community college before taking his driver\u2019s test and is one of the youngest college students you\u2019ll ever meet, surrounded by students twice his age. Diep says the San Jose campus was the perfect place for him to explore his curiosity for math and science.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I walk into a classroom, I\u2019m a bit nervous, but over the semester I started to know the people around me better and we\u2019ve become friends,\u201d said Diep.<\/p>\n
Diep just finished his second year of college, earning an associate\u2019s degree in mathematics. He didn\u2019t just finish the course work, he excelled, graduating with a perfect 4.0 GPA and being named valedictorian of his graduating class. It\u2019s no surprise to his professors like Dr. Alessandro Bailetti-Saez, who says the 12-year-old always showed up to class looking for as much knowledge as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cHieu had that mentality of doing well, but not because he wanted to do well but because he wanted to learn,\u201d said Dr. Bailetti-Saez.<\/p>\n
After graduation, Diep plans on taking more classes and earning more degrees at Evergreen Valley. His long-term goal is to become an infectious disease physician.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I don\u2019t understand something I work really hard on it, ask questions and try to learn from my mistakes,\u201d said the young valedictorian.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n
\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(KRON) \u2014 Friday is graduation day for the students at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose. This year\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[14724,137755,33284,137756,88,90,89,137754],"class_list":["post-332471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-college-students","tag-evergreen-valley","tag-evergreen-valley-college","tag-graduation-day","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-valedictorian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_kron_articles_505\/b75fe24d0a406d69e2b3f74a775030df.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n